Three Small Facts (A Love Story)
by and so they said always
Summary: Fact 1: He is six. It's is his birthday (he doesn't know yet that this is going to be the best birthday he ever has) Fact 2: Today is the first time he meets a girl who he thinks is amazing. Perfect, really. Fact 3: She is the love of his life. A Caskett AU long-fic where the characters are little kids. Lots of Castle and Beckett, though Castle's perspective. Enjoy!
1. 1 - To Catch a Glimpse

**Hi guys,  
**So this is my new AU fic, where the characters are little kids. I really hope you enjoy it, it's nearly 98% cuteness and fluff.  
Just to clear something up before you begin - in this story, they're all living in a little suburb outside New York, in houses, not apartments. I'm not American, so I really don't know a whole lot about the area geographically, but bare with me. It's the story that counts, right?  
This is told from Castle's perspective.

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 1  
****a caskett fanfiction**

This story begins, in a fashion most befitting of its title, with three small facts. In this instance, they are about a boy called Richard Castle, and are as follows.

_Fact 1:  
_He is six. It's his birthday today, in fact. (He doesn't know yet that this is going to be the best birthday of his life, of course; that's the thing about "bests" – you never really can see them coming).  
_Fact 2:  
_Today is the first time he meets a girl whom he does not find irritating or giggly. The first time he meets a girl he thinks is amazing, actually. Pretty close to perfect, even.  
_Fact 3:  
_She is the love of his life.

The first time he sees her, it is by chance.  
He is pretending to be a super spy, acting out the story that is unravelling off its own accord inside his head like a spool of cotton slowly pooling on the floor that is his imagination. In an attempt to hide from a foreign (and entirely imaginary) agent threatening the security of America, he is hanging upside down out of his living room window, his feet hooked over the sill, his hair trailing in his eyes. Castle huffs out a puff of air, causing his brown locks fly away for less than a moment, before settling back again.  
He can hear the sounds of the movers carrying boxes up from the van into his new house, hear the extroverted squawk of his mother and a picture of her gesturing emphatically swims into his mind's eye.  
This is the second time they've moved in three months, though his mother had declared that they really would be here for a long while. It's a shame, he thinks. Castle quite likes moving, really – he gets to see a lot of interesting places, and pretend that their two-person family is in a witness protection program, being shifted around by the government after witnessing some heinous crime. He meets cool people, too, on the road. Writers of the plays and films his mother acts in. He thinks he should quite like to be like them, one day. Most kids his age fail to capture his interest, though. He can make friends very easily, but they've all been friendships of convenience. He's never had a burning desire to _get to know _someone.  
And that will change in about _three_… _two_... _one_…  
A tall tree grows in his next door neighbour's yard, though some of the branches spill over the fence and hang a little into his. In that moment, they rustle slightly, and he catches sight of a figure that has climbed all the way to the top of the tree, and is turning her head left and right, as if a scout clearing the way for an army.  
Just a glimpse, that's all he gets. A brief, half-second flash of choppy brown hair, a red scarf and big brown eyes filled with echoes of stories and brimming with snarky intelligence.  
And the most amazing, proud, beautiful smile that glows so brightly it puts the sun and every star to shame. He wishes more than anything he could buy a lifetime pass to seeing that grin, to putting it on her face.  
He has no idea who that girl is.  
But, oh, he _so _knows he wants to.  
Then, just as he thinks she is about to disappear back into the cover of the leaves and darkness will fall back over everything (a darkness he never noticed before, but now firmly believes he will never be able to _stop _noticing, because he knows now how spectacularly bright everything can be) she turns her head.  
Accidentally catches his eye.  
For her, it probably felt like two or three milliseconds, there and then gone.  
For him, it was the flaring of a supernova, those last few days of summer you try so desperately to hang onto. He is able to see the burning realm that is _her _behind those russet coloured eyes of hers; it is a place he wishes he could memorise.  
She disappears. Perhaps she was never there at all. Perhaps he, like Joan of Arc, has just witnessed the coming of an unprecedented angel.  
His ears are ringing, and he feels vaguely dizzy, as if someone has poured an ice cold bucket full of missed heartbeats all over him, and it is tingling through his veins. _  
_If asked later, he would insist he fell because he'd been hanging upside down too long, and all the blood had gone to his head. Or perhaps because he'd unexpectedly lost his balance (yes, mother, super-secret special agents sometimes lose their balance too… please don't say _I told you so_).  
He would never admit to anyone that it was because of her, and that smile, and those eyes.  
_(Well, actually, he does. Years and years later. Just to her. It is around 1am, and she laughs and laughs at him. He doesn't mind – anything that makes her laugh, whatever it is… well, that is more than good enough for him. Then, when the sound has died off to brief little chuckles, she kisses him. It must be the ten hundredth time they kiss, but it still makes him feel so incredibly lucky. He wishes he could go back to his six year old self, the one who fell off the window sill, and tell him that he'll be in that same tree, kissing Kate Beckett one day. It will be a long time coming, he would say, and a lot of waiting, but that's where we end up. And it is so worth it. Then Kate kisses him again, and he reflects that perhaps he should have told her sooner, if this is what that shared revelation earns him. This is followed by him giving up on thinking entirely.)  
_"Ow," he mutters, as he thuds, without the smallest hint of grace, onto the grass below. Luckily, the living room is on the ground floor, and he only fell about two feet.  
His hands fly to his face, then the back of his head. As far as he can tell, he's still all in one piece.  
He hears footsteps near him, too soft to be his mother's.  
Castle closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and gives up his atheism, praying to every god that ever was and ever will be that it's the girl from the tree.  
He cracks open an eye, still holding his breath and his hope.  
It's not her.  
It's another boy from the block – Castle saw him earlier playing in the front yard of the house directly across the street. He's probably around five or six, too, but his innocent blue eyes, fluffy gold hair and happily confused expression means he looks closer to four.  
It's funny, Castle reflects. The beautiful girl in the tree couldn't have been much more than five, but she seemed older, heavy with a wisdom that should not yet belong to her. He wants to talk to her and hug her and tell stories with her. This boy, by comparison, makes Castle want to give him a pat on the head and a cookie.  
"Hello," the boy mutters cautiously, inspecting Castle with an expression as close to suspicious as he's able to get.  
"Hi," Castle replies.  
He seems to have passed some sort of test, because the other kid sticks out a hand. "I'm Kevin Ryan, and I live across the street."  
"I'm Castle," he responds, shaking the proffered fingers. "Um, Rick Castle. But I like Castle better. It sounds cool."  
"It _does _sound cool," Kevin pipes up, half nervous, half awed. Then he casts a glance over his shoulder, and calls out to someone Castle can't see.  
"Hey, Javi!" he shouts. "Come here a minute, will you!"  
There is a second where nothing happens, and Castle wonders briefly if Kevin is one of those kids who still has their imaginary friends (Castle does, but he at least has the presence of mind to pretend he doesn't when out in public). Then another little boy vaults over the low fence in Castle's new front yard, and jogs over to them.  
"Javi, this is Ri- Castle. And, um, Castle? This is my cousin, Javier Esposito. He lives with me and my sisters now," Kevin rattles off. The two cousins share little family resemblance – this 'Javi' has a distinctly unimpressed look to counteract the other boy's awed one. An appraising eyebrow is raised and directed at Castle.  
"What's up, bro?" this greeting is offered to Castle as if it is a prototype. Javier is clearly not as quick to accept a stranger as his cousin, but is at least willing to give Richard a trial run as a potential friend.  
"You new here?" Javier asks.  
"Practically ancient. Moved in about ten minutes ago," Castle responds.  
"Do you have any friends here?" Kevin inquires kindly. Castle shakes his head. "Well," he says, in that faint lilt that Castle identifies as Irish, "you have us now. We'll be your friends. Come on, we'll show you around."  
Castle is about to hesitate when it occurs to him that they probably know the girl from the tree. They seem like pretty nice boys, anyway, and he concedes that if they really are going to be here as long as his mother has speculated, he really could use some friends.  
"All right. Thanks," he agrees.  
They nod, and race off again, Castle dashing off after them. His heart sinks as he realises they are heading _away _from the girl in the house to the left of his, and not _towards _her. He really wants to be doing the latter.  
Though, he supposes, as they cross the empty street, it's always good to save the best for last. It's possible that, even though it grates at him, a few more minutes, or even an hour, of not knowing Her (he's decided she merits a capital "H" until he learns her name) won't matter in the scheme of things.  
Because Richard Castle very much intends on knowing Her for a very, very long time.


	2. 2 - What Could Be Written

**Hi guys,  
Here is chapter two. I'm pretty sure I never mentioned it earlier, but this story is set in an unspecified time in the past - hence no cell phones, and a couple of other things.  
I hope you enjoy. Please review, or send in ideas as to where you would like the story to go.**

**-EM.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 2  
****a caskett fanfiction**

In keeping with the nature of this story, this chapter (and every chapter that shall follow) also begins with three small facts.

_Fact 1:  
_It was nine am the first time he caught sight of Her. He does not see Her again for almost two hours. They are the longest two hours of his short life.  
_Fact 2:  
_He is going to learn the most important words he will ever know. Two words that will sing through his dreams and stay on his lips like a kiss.  
_Fact 3:  
_Today is the first day of the rest of his life.

"This is our house," Kevin tells him happily, skipping up to tap the whitewashed fence. "We would go in and show you around, but -"  
"Kev's sisters have friends over and they told us we had to play outside today," Javier finishes darkly.  
"Whoa. How many sisters do you have?" Castle asks. The idea of living in a house full of girls is enough to induce him with a fair amount of fear. Just _one_ mother is more than enough. How would he cope with two? Or three?  
It depends on the girls, he supposes. Say, for example, he wouldn't mind living in a house filled with versions of the girl from the tree. Everywhere he looked, her eyes, her smile. Yeah, he could get very used to that. Or rather, he wouldn't, and he would feel happily dumbstruck constantly.  
"I have a lot of sisters," Kevin replies, while Javier nods emphatically. "They are mostly nice, though. But they talk quite loudly."  
More nodding from Javi.  
Castle is informed that to the left of the Ryan residence is a cross old man named Roy something. He is, apparently, to be avoided at all costs. To the right is a Russian family who can't speak any English, though they seem nice enough, according to the two cousins.  
"Who lives there?" Castle asks, nodding his head towards the lot next to Roy's. It's a cute place, with a flower garden and a swing set. It's a bit too girly for Castle's taste, a little too quaint. Nice, though.  
Kevin goes redder than a beet, and stares fixedly at the ground, mumbling something like "Mallylalies".  
An uncontrollable smirk breaks out across Javi's face.  
"What was that, Kev?" he asks innocently.  
Another, almost inaudible, mutter.  
Finally, Javi takes pity. "It's the O'Malley's house," he tells Castle. "It's where _Jenny O'Malley _lives."  
Castle nods sagely, but doesn't fully understand. Is Jenny O'Malley a scary lady? Does she have a vendetta against Kevin? It's hard to imagine, he looks so small and inoffensive.  
Suddenly, Esposito appears to have a truly brilliant idea. His smirk becomes so wide it could actually threaten his well-being. Evading Kevin's desperate attempts to stop him, Javier dashes past the gate and up to the house's front door. Knocks. Kevin and Castle follow him up, the former looking ready to melt into the ground, never to be seen again.  
A tall, imperious woman with blonde hair opens the door. _Is this Jenny? _Castle wonders.  
"Hello, Mrs O'Malley," Javier says politely. "We were wondering if we could see Jenny, please? Only we want to introduce her to our new friend who just moved into the house across the street."  
The woman smiles down at the three of them. "Of course, sweetie. Just a moment."  
She disappears.  
"Javi," Kevin hisses, looking terrified.  
A moment later a pretty little girl of around their age tugs the door back open. "Hello, Kevie, Javi," she murmurs, all blonde hair and blue eyes and small smiles.  
Kevin still seems incapable of speech. Suddenly, it clicks for Castle, and he grins. Javi steps in. "Hi, Jenny. We just wanted you to meet our new friend, Castle. He just moved in across the street."  
"Oh, that's nice," Jenny gives him a genuine smile, a gesture he returns. "Next to Becks?"  
Kevin manages to nod. Castle pats him on the back consolingly. His ears perk up, however, at the word "Becks". Is that the girl from the tree? One of her parents? Perhaps the occupant of the house to the right of his who is yet to meet?  
"Yeah," Javi confirms. "We're showing him around; we just came to say hi. We better keep going. See you later, Jenny."  
"Bye," Castle offers.  
Esposito and Castle start back down the path to the street when they realise Kevin is not behind them.  
The little boy is still standing in front of Jenny, looking stoic and determined. In such a rush that his words sound to be dominos falling on top of each other, he mutters, "_You-look-very-pretty-Jenny._"  
"Thanks, Kevie," she replies, pleased.  
Ryan grins, chuffed with himself, and leaps down the stairs that lead off the tiny front porch. "Bye, Jenny!" he calls over his shoulder, nearly glowing with pride.  
Javi waits until they're outside the gate to speak. "That was, like, seven words, bro. New record!"  
Castle's about to remind them that the first five kind of sounded a lot more like one very long word, but he can't bring himself to ruin the look on Kevin's face.  
He wonders if he'll stutter and stumble and struggle if he tries to talk to Her. The girl from the tree. He hopes not. He doubts she's as open and easy as Jenny – she looks like she'd be hard to impress. But also like it would be so worth it if you did.  
(_He does manage to impress her. Once or twice. It takes a long while, and a lot of planning and effort, but he pulls it off. And his six-year-old self's speculations fell significantly short. It is better than worth it. He spends every day after he finally impresses her wishing he'd had a camera with him, in case he never gets to see that expression on her face again. But he does. Over and over. That glow in her eyes and proud half-smile go down in his mental book of things he loves about her, and is lucky to be able to love about her.)  
_The cousins lead him back across the street, and hope flares in his heart. Maybe they will visit her house, this time?  
No. Javi and Espo take him to stand in front of the house on the corner, next to the one he so wants to be at.  
"This is where Lanie lives," Kevin tells him. "She's on holiday at the moment, so no one's home, but she should come back in a few days. You'll like her. She's fun. She's seven, like Javi."  
Castle stores away this trivia. Maybe he can write a story later today about the neighbourhood. Fill it with all the details he's learned.  
Suddenly, the rumbling of an engine turning over breaks the silence in the next yard. _Her _yard. The trio of boys watches silently as a Ute pulls out of the driveway of number 29 (he'd already forgotten his house was number 30, but 29 is now burned into his memory). Sitting in the metal tray, eyes closed, leaning up against the back of the cabin, is Her. The nameless girl looks so peaceful that even the sunlight behaves gently around her: while it is burning the back of Castle's neck, it only seems to give her a soft sort of glow. So she _is _real. He had wondered. She makes a small humming noise that is barely audible above the putter of the engine. Her fingers toy with the frayed strings at the end of her red scarf. He half wants her to open her eyes, so he can lose himself in them again, but also wishes she could keep that contented, sleepy look. But, the car drives away with her still in the back, leaving him with nothing.  
Except for the memory of the impossibly beautiful hanging over him like a resounding echo, except it strengthens instead of fading as he fixes that girl and everything about her in his mind. To hold onto. To be a recollection he can pull out and revisit on the rainiest days.  
"That's Beckett," Javier tells him. "She's called Kate Beckett, really. But she likes it better if you call her Beckett. Well, actually, she'll kill you if you call her Kate."  
_Kate. Kate Beckett. _He turns it over and over in his mind. It is a name like a song. It is perfect, just like her.  
Castle sighs. Who is he kidding? If he were to write a tale about his new neighbourhood, everyone he's talked to this morning would get half a sentence - if he were feeling generous. He knows that in a matter of moments, the story would become, and stay, a story about her. 

* * *

**There you are. Hope you liked it.  
As I said, this story is set a bit in the past, and in a kind of smallish town, so Kate riding in the back of the car for a couple of blocks wouldn't really be an issue.**

**New chapter soon,**

**-EM**


	3. 3 - The Start of a Story

**Hi,  
So this is my third update today, because I don't want to be doing homework and I'm having a lot of fun writing this story.  
Hopefully you're enjoying reading it.**

**-M.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 3  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_In just a little while, he will get to say _hello_ to her. It will be the best thing he has ever done.

_Fact 2:  
_He will accidentally begin a very long tradition that will stay with them for the rest of their lives._  
_

_Fact 3:  
_She changes everything.

* * *

Castle plays with Javi and Kevin for around half an hour, kicking a soccer ball around in the street. No cars ever seem to come by, which pleases the cousins (they can run around uninterrupted), but disappoints him (he wants to see her again. Kate). Eventually, though, his mother comes out and asks him come inside to unpack his things.

He waves goodbye to his new friends and departs, and is soon dragging cardboard box after cardboard box up the stairs. His mother had said he could have the bigger bedroom if he wanted, as she had called shots on the study (what his mother could possibly be studying, he has no idea). Originally, he'd intended to take her up on the offer, but now, he realises the smaller room affords a view of the tree in which he saw Kate Beckett. Maybe she climbs it often. He knows it would be unrealistic to hope that the bedroom whose windows he can see from his own room is hers, but he hopes it anyway. Perhaps he could wave at her, if that is her room. Because of the way the houses are organised, with small front yards, large back yards and very tiny gaps between the houses (a medium-high fence working its way narrowly and precariously between the two residencies), there is only about five feet between his window and the one across the fence (the _Maybe Possibly Her's_ window) and the tree is around eight or nine feet away, albeit at a different angle.

Now he's picked what could very well be his room for a very long while, he gives it the once-over. Aside from the window that gazes at the Beckett house, there is also a larger, rectangular window that watches over the backyard. The walls are white, save for one, which is painted a deep and solemn red colour. He likes it. It reminds him of autumn.

The wall opposite the window that faces Number 29 seems to be a neatly fitting collection of draws and closets that spans its entire length and width. Some are very small little drawers, barely big enough to stack two packets of biscuits. Others are big enough that Castle himself could fit inside. The array of squares and rectangles looks coolly random, yet strangely neatly organised.

He stands aside as the mover men carry his bed into his room and nudge the headboard up against the wall, tightening the screws that let it keep its structure. Next, they carry up his desk (it's a far bigger table than he really needs, but he likes spreading out) and set it in the corner.  
Castle asks politely of the man with the drill in his belt if he will fix his bookshelf to his wall. The man ruffles Castle's hair and does as he requests, looking cheerful.

Grumbling, but nevertheless obeying his mother's orders, he organises his clothes and toys into the cupboards and cubbyholes he can reach, and arranges his books on his shelf. He immediately feels more peaceful, more settled.

He looks across to the room in the next house. It has nearly a whole wall covered by a bookshelf, which itself is stuffed with tomes. Oh, he _so _wishes it is Kate's room. He has a mental image of trading books with her (she strikes him as the kind of person who probably takes good care of books – people with such collections often do), of picking out ones she'll like to lend her. He will know her well enough, one day, to choose stories she'll love, he decides. He will. Because suddenly he wants that picture, that dream in his mind's eye, to be true. He wants it so badly.

He reads for a while.

It gets later.

He draws, but the pictures all turn out to be scribbles, because really what he is doing is listening for the Ute. Waiting for it to return.  
At around four o'clock, the movers leave.

His mother comes into his new room, puts sheets on his bed, and stashes some more of his things in the higher cupboards he cannot reach. Then she stretches out a hand.  
"Come on, kiddo," she says, her eyes twinkling. "I know it hasn't been much of a birthday so far, so what do you say to going to that little café around the corner and getting us some hot chocolate?"  
"Oh, yes, please," Castle replies. As for it not having been much of a birthday… He doesn't tell his mother, but if that Ute were only to pull back into its driveway, if Kate Beckett were to hop out, if he were to get up the courage to go and say hello… Well, it could turn out to be the best birthday in a long while.  
They're halfway to the café when the Ute (it's unremarkable, but now he'd recognise it anywhere) whirs by them, headed back to Number 29. His eyes follow it until it is out of sight. He sighs. He keeps _just _missing her. Just missing out.

As his mother is ordering at the counter, Castle has a sudden idea. How to break through the steeliness he saw in Kate Beckett's eyes when she sat in the tree. It wasn't icy steel, not cold or harsh, but a kind of wall of self-preservation and protection. The kind that keeps emotions a manageable distance away. He knows those shields because they spring up around him, too, sometimes. Like when people ask about his father.

He tugs his mother's sleeve.  
"Can we get an extra one? For my friend?" he asks. "Please? It's my birthday," he wheedles.  
She agrees. He is filled with a balloon of happiness, hope spurred on by his genius plan.

They walk back together, Castle's hands occupied with the two drinks in the takeaway cups. He balances them carefully, not wanting any to spill. His mother sips at hers, but he ignores his. He wants to save it so he can drink it later. When he gives Kate hers.

As they walk home, he spies Kate Beckett sitting in her back yard, a mess of string around her fingers as she leans with her back to the tree. His mother ushers him through their own gate before he can work up the courage to go through her one.

Once in his own yard, he runs along the fence that separates 29 and 30, and finds a gap in the woodwork, right at the end, just wide enough for a determined six-year-old to squeeze through. He looks around. His mother has gone inside. Clutching the two hot chocolates firmly in his hands, he wriggles through the small space in the planks, a portal to a world with Kate Beckett.

He could have sworn he made very little noise, but she starts when he steps towards her anyway. Lithe as a cat, she springs to her feet, the twisted string falling from her hands to the ground. Her face is set, though. She looks fixedly unperturbed.

"Sorry," Castle winces. He wishes the slightly startled and flighty expression on her face would disappear. He wants the happy, intelligent look to come back. "I didn't mean to scare you."  
"You didn't scare me," she informs him sharply.  
"Well, I'm sorry anyway," he continues. He begins to panic a little; this isn't going well. Normally he's very good around new people. Not her. Maybe this was a bad plan after all. He takes a breath to calm himself back down, and raises one of the hot chocolates. "Look, I got this extra one to give to Kevin or Javier," – a total lie, but she doesn't know that – "but I couldn't find them on the street. And apparently they have some scary sisters, so I didn't want to knock on their door and bother them. Anyway, I saw you here and wondered if you might want it. I'm not going to drink it, obviously. I've already got mine."

She looks at him with a mixture of appraisal, suspicion and apprehension. "You know Kev and Espo?" she asks finally, the wariness in her face easing a bit.  
He nods emphatically. "Yes. I met them today. I only just moved in, see, but they seem very nice."  
"They are," she informs him.  
He cautiously takes another step towards her, holding out the hot chocolate like a talisman, a liquid peace offering.  
She eyes the drink suspiciously, so he takes a sip from his. "It's good. Promise. Please? I don't want to throw it away."

Finally, she sighs, and takes it from him, but doesn't drink.

"I haven't done anything to it," he says, realising that perhaps that is why she is reluctant. At one of his old schools, a boy had given Castle a milk drink he'd poured chilli sauce in. He shudders at the memory.  
"I know," she tells him. "If you had, Espo and Ryan would beat you up tomorrow."

Castle grins easily. "What if I ran to Jenny's house? She's nice enough to let me in. Then all I would have to do would be in the same room as her, and Kevin wouldn't be able to move. It would just be Javi I'd have to fend off."  
He gets the impression she almost smiled – her face lights up with the echo of the possible smile that could have been, but was stopped at the last minute. Maybe she does not smile around strangers. It will be his mission, then, to no longer be a stranger. "He does freeze up around her, doesn't he? It's silly, really. Jenny's more scared of him than he is of her, I think."  
Castle laughs. "Is that a rule for most girls? Are you more scared of me than I am of you?"  
"Ha," she mutters. "No. I'm not scared of anything."  
"I bet you're not," he affirms. Then decides to go for it, and sits down on the grass.  
After a moment's hesitation, she sits also, cross-legged, a few feet away from him. A safe distance, in her opinion, maybe? Well, if that's what it takes to make her comfortable, then it's fine with him.  
"I'm Castle, by the way. My name's Rick, actually. But my last name's Castle, and I like that a lot better. It sounds like something out of a story, don't you think?"  
"Most castles in stories are made out of stone," she comments, before adding, "I'm Beckett."

Ah, so he doesn't get to know the 'Kate' bit yet, then? He'll pretend he doesn't already know, so as not to freak her out. Perhaps she is like one of those very interesting books, the secrets in which are revealed slowly, page by page. He is determined to memorise every last one.  
"Do you read a lot of stories?" he pries. Anything she'll tell him. Anything that can get him closer to being able to say, "_Kate Beckett? Yeah, I know her. She's my friend." _And maybe, one day, if he's very lucky, "_Yeah, she's my best friend."_

After several heartbeats, she nods. "Yes. I love books. Especially scary ones."

His eyes light up. "Ooh, yes. Me too. I read all sorts, though. My favourites are the crime ones that my mother leaves lying around. I'm not supposed to read them, I don't think, because they are pretty violent, but I love them. They're interesting. And hard. I like it when something's not easy," he rambles. _Like you. You're not going to be easy to get to know, are you, Beckett?  
_

She takes a sip from the hot chocolate. His stomach flips. Point One for Castle.

He decides to tell her about his day with Kevin and Javi, and although reserved, she seems to be listening.

Then he starts detailing the plot of the crime novel he's been reading. He watches how it draws her in, despite her clear desire to not be enthralled. He loves it.  
"…So he, like, waves the gun in Quinton's face, and fires."  
"What then?" she asks, careful to keep any interest out of her voice. He doesn't mind.  
"Well, I don't know yet. That's as far as I've got."

Castle takes the empty cup out of her hand. "Tell you what, Beckett. I'll go finish reading it now. Then I can tell you about it tomorrow. How's that?"  
She seems about to answer when a voice from the house fractures the air. "Katie!"  
Beckett hops to her feet. "Coming!" she shouts back. He is immediately jealous of the unseen thief of Kate Beckett, who gets to take her away from him.

She shoots Castle another appraising, but slightly warmer (by maybe a fraction of a degree) look, before turning away.  
"See you tomorrow?" he calls after her as the gathering darkness opens its maw around her, poised to swallow.  
"Maybe," she replies.

He watches her until she disappears into her house, before he turns and wriggles through the fence's gap, back to his yard.  
Castle pauses for a second. Smiles to himself. The two cups in his hands are now empty, and he has said _hello. _

* * *

**There you are. Hope you liked it. Please review and/or send in prompts as to what you would like to happen next.**

**PS. I won't always update this often, I'm just trying to launch and get this story going.**

**-M.**


	4. 4 - In the Interests of Knowing

**Hi everyone,  
I hope you're enjoying the story so far. I'm enjoying writing it (as evidenced by my ridiculous amount of updates). **

**Just wanted to kind of prepare you all: Kate won't be in every chapter. Some chapters, like this one, Castle just thinks/talks about her or sees her. She'll appear much more frequently once they start becoming friends.**

**All right. Have fun. **

**If you like it (and even if you don't) please review, or send in any prompts you have for what you want to happen next.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 4  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_In one afternoon, he has said hello and goodbye to the love of his life. These are things he will say to her over and over._  
_

_Fact 2:  
_He is too excited to go to sleep. When he does, though, he dreams of her._  
_

_Fact 3:  
_He has a most valuable thing in his possession: the promise of _maybe _from Kate Beckett.

* * *

Castle flops onto his bed in his pyjamas, grinning like the cat that got the cream. More like the tiger that got the entire dairy factory (ooh, tigers. They're cool. He'd quite like to meet a tiger one day, he thinks). He sighs, and reflects upon what transpired to be a very long, very important day.

He made two new friends called Javi and Kevin.

He met Jenny, and the façade of the unknown Lanie's house.

His mother gave him an old typewriter for a birthday present. It is amazing fun, makes a lovely _tick-tack-tick-tack-ding _noise, and means he will be able to write stories whenever he chooses without having to worry about the legibility of his handwriting as his pen whirs across the page (even he will concede that his handwriting looks like a dying, inky spider straggled across the lines in its final moments). Right this moment, there is a thick, milky coloured piece of paper sitting in the mechanism, with a smattering of words. A reflection of the other, biggest, best thing that happened today.

It reads as follows:

_Things I Know About Kate Beckett_

_ - She has the best smile in the whole world, but she won't show it if she thinks you're watching  
- She has beautiful eyes that make you want to stare at her forever  
- She has a red scarf that she fiddles with  
- She likes to knot string between her fingers (I wish I could hold her hand)  
- She loves stories  
- She knows Kevin and Javier  
- She only lets you call her Beckett  
- She does not talk to strangers easily  
- She can climb trees  
- She listens_

The list continues, an amalgamation of all the little bits of information he has gathered over the course of the day.  
The last one he wrote sits happily at the foot of the page, a solid, inky truth.

- _I think she is perfect._

He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling, brimming with energy. He wants to jump up and down.

He is struck by a sudden _why the hell not?  
_

Castle climbs to his feet, and springs up and down, the mattress giving easily below him. It's new, so lucky, it doesn't squeak.

He's on his six or seventh jump when he catches sight of Kate entering the room across from his (an internal band begins playing a victory march on his realising that _it really is her room, _and he'll be able to wave to her and maybe once in a while look up from his desk and accidentally-on-purpose catch her eye) with a woman who must be her mother.

Mrs Beckett gives Kate a kiss on the forehead, and murmurs something to her daughter that makes her laugh (he can hear it through the open windows).  
Castle comes down from the peak of his jump, but his knees give way beneath him and he falls onto his back. The whiplash jerks his neck, but he couldn't care less.

Oh, _god, _her _laugh. _He plays it on repeat in his mind, over and over. Wishes that they sold it on records. You could put that laugh in a bottle, pour it over the dead and the dying and watch them come alive again. It sounds like magic and the best of times with the best of friends.  
He springs to his feet, and threads a new piece of paper into the typewriter, and heads it with: _TO DO LIST.  
_There is just one dot point.

_ - Get Kate Beckett to laugh again_

* * *

It takes a long time, but he does sleep eventually.

He dreams.

She occupies most of them. In his favourite ones, they're both there.

He dreams of reading with her and climbing trees with her and listening to her talk and telling her stories.

These are the best kinds of dreams.

_(He'll have better dreams about her in years to come, of course. Dreams filled with white dresses and rings and promises like 'always', but the young Castle doesn't understand these things yet. He will, though. She makes him want to understand them. And then one day, he stops having to dream, because those little hopes become little realities. But he never forgets that first night, those first dreams, because he loves her. Every memory of that is precious and perfect and worth holding onto.)  
_

When he wakes, he is still buzzing with exhilaration from the pictures in his mind. Its takes him a moment to remember that they are, in fact, _just pictures_, and that Beckett does not smile at him, has not told him her first name is Kate, and has never laughed because of him.

But she will.

Over and over, time after time. He more determined about this than he has ever been about anything.

And then he remembers his window.

Cautiously, yet bursting with excitement as if he were approaching his presents under the Christmas tree, he stands on his bed, and gazes across the gap to the house next door.

She's still asleep. She's quite a way away, so he can't see her very well, but she does look younger. Smaller. It makes him want to stand next at the foot of her bed at night with a sword and shield, fending off the monsters in the darkness and her bad dreams.  
He doesn't want her to wake, catch him staring and freak out, so he climbs off his bed and closes the curtains. Castle glances at himself in his mirror: he looks sleepy, his brown hair is messed up every which way, but he radiates happiness, too.

Today is going to be a very, very good day. He's going to make sure of that.

He sheds his spaceship pyjamas (he would be prepared to deny owning these in the Supreme Court, hand on the bible) and tugs on some jeans that are a little too long, some sneakers and buttons on a blue short-sleeve shirt. He considers combing his hair, but decides there are better things in which to invest his time.

Like breakfast. He likes breakfast.

He reads his mother's crime novel (it's called _Kill Me Once, Shame on You, _and is really very thrilling) while he eats his toast, determined to fulfil his promise to Beckett and finish the book. He finally does (he was pretty close, anyway – he'd read more than he'd told her he had, because he purposefully left her on a cliff hanger that increased her chances of wanting to know the ending), cleans his teeth and heads out into the street, hoping to find Kevin or Javi to play kick around with until he can go see Beckett. He's decided not to go too early, because he doesn't want his eagerness to scare her off.

Castle locates Kevin and Javier drawing with chalk on their driveway, supervised by one of the many older Ryan sisters. She looks around fifteen or so.

"Hello," he says boldly, walking up to them.

They greet him with smiles and waves, and offer him some chalk, too. He joins them, waiting a moment before sharing the information that is desperate to burst from his lips.

"I met Beckett," he tells them in a rush. It comes out sounding pleased and proud and hopeful. Huh. He meant to sound very casual.

Esposito immediately straightens up, glaring at him, while Kevin rounds on him. "And were you nice to her?" Javi asks, menacing. It comes as more of calm threat than a question.

Castle takes a step back. Beckett really _hadn't _been kidding. They _would _beat him up. Where was Jenny when you needed her? "I was very nice to her, thank you," he informs them, trying to look both offended and tough at the same time.

Thankfully, the Ryan sister (he later finds out her name is Stephanie), swoops him and rescues him. "Be good, boys," she reminds them, but her tone is pleasant and warm. "I'm sure your friend was very nice to Katie."  
Javi starts. "You can't call her _Katie,_" he hisses. "She's _Beckett._"  
Stephanie laughs. "I'm three times her age, sweetie. She thinks I'm cool. I could call her pumpkin if I wanted." All three boys freeze, scandalised at the suggestion. Castle suspects this is Darwin's theory of evolution in action: that kind of an attitude is a veritable death wish. Beckett is not someone to be messed with. However, if Stephanie _is _right… If Beckett _would _let her call her Katie… Castle is struck by the sudden urge to demand, _"Tell me your secrets."_ He restrains himself, however. Most of her 'secrets' probably involve being older and a girl, two of the few things he cannot do, even for Beckett.

At that moment, Jenny enters the yard, and everyone's attention is directed away from Castle's exploits.  
"Hello," she offers. Her voice is high and sweet, and makes her sound even younger than she is. Kevin is instantly rendered immobile. This girl is his walking, talking kryptonite, it would seem. Jenny raises the little basket in her hands. "Mom and I made muffins this morning. I was wondering if you would like some."

They all nod emphatically, and thank her (even Kevin manages to, after a few pokes from his sister send him into action). Eventually, she joins them, beginning to draw a flower in yellow and pink.

Ryan's face acquires a very set expression, and in a careful hand, he draws a bunch of brightly coloured balloons. They're really very good. Then, in a feat that surprises all three onlookers, he goes up to Jenny and taps her on the shoulder.  
"These are for you," he informs her, indicating the balloons, a hopeful kind of expression decorating his little face.  
She smiles, and gives him an impromptu hug. "Thanks, Kevie," Jenny says.  
Castle grins. Point Two to Kevin. The little guy was on a roll these two days. His face falls a bit as he realises earning a hug from Beckett will be nowhere near as easy.

Not even close.

He sighs.

Then an idea occurs to him.  
Castle marches up to Stephanie and tugs on her sleeve to until he gets her attention. She gazes down at him inquiringly, and he leads her a little off to the side, before putting forward his question.

"You said Beckett likes you. How do I get her to like me? How do I get her to let me be her friend?" He scrapes his foot along the concrete a little self-consciously. He feels like an idiot. Normally, he has no trouble at all getting into people's good books, and has never had to ask for advice before. He can't remember encountering someone before who took this much effort to befriend, and if one such person had existed, he probably gave up on them very quickly.

But not Kate. He will not give up until he knows her like the back of his hand, and he can make her laugh and smile.

_(It's a good thing he never gave up, too. She is so worth knowing. She's the best person in the whole world. And while he had his suspicions of that at six, he couldn't have known for sure. Now he does. Later, much later, when Richard Castle is old, he half wishes he could travel back in time and show his little self his wedding ring. And a picture of Kate's face, with all her laugh lines, the ones he put there. And tell the little him, "I don't know a damn thing about the back of my hand. Couldn't tell you how many freckles or wrinkles or even if I've still got fingernails. But I could tell you every single thing about her, mate. From what it means when she raises her left eyebrow and taps her fingers to her favourite kind of rain. Every little thing and every big thing. You get to know it all.")  
_

"Aw, you really like her, don't you?" Stephanie grins. Castle looks stricken, and she quickly changes tack. "I mean, she made quite an impression, didn't she?"

Castle breathes out in relief, but nods very fast. "Yes, I think she's per- really very interesting."

Stephanie sighs. "Look, sweetie. Katie's not a girl who takes to strangers easily. She's used to people coming and going and leaving her behind. She was a happy little kid, but then her cousin died in a car accident, and her father spends most of his time working in the city, and… well, a lot of things have made her quite… reserved. I think the most you can do is keep showing up. Be there. Earn her trust and let her decide for herself if she likes you."  
"Be there?" Castle grins, a plan forming in his mind. "I can do that. I can do that always."

_(And he does.)_

* * *

**There you are. It's getting late here, so that'll be the last update from me today. Hopefully I'll be able to post another chapter or two tomorrow (I was putting in a big effort today to get it off the ground, but now I really have to do some homework).**

**I hope you are enjoying everything so far, and if you are, please tell me in the reviews! It's always nice to have some encouragement, it makes me want to keep writing. Don't forget to message/post any prompts, either here, or on this account's tumblr twin, ( .com) which is essentially a carbon copy of this FFNet account.**

**x. M**


	5. 5 - Nikki & Rook, A Beginning

**Hi guys,**

**Here's the new chapter, as promised. There's quite a few nods to the real series in this one, and more Castle and Beckett time. Hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 5  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_He now has a plan. He's going to wait and watch and get closer to her day by day.  
_Fact 2:  
_He's trying to find something to think about other than her. Anything else.  
_Fact 3:  
_It's not working. It never will.

He sees her sitting in front of her house, a book clutched in her hands. The tiny little frown that forms on her forehead as her eyes chase the words across the page, and the way she scrunches her nose cutely from time to time do strange, inexplicable things to the rhythm of Castle's heart.  
He leans against the gate of 29.  
"Hello," he calls out. Even he'll admit he sounds a touch on the shy side. How unlike him.  
In response, her eyes flick from her book and she raises an eyebrow at him. "What do you want, Castle?" she demands archly, her fingers sliding over the colourful dust cover.  
He is struck by the sudden inclination to take those fingers and lace them with his, though he suspects Beckett would not take kindly to the proposition. She's probably hit him. Hard.  
"I was wondering if I could use your tree for a bit. I'll be really quiet. I won't bother you at all," he propositions politely, carefully. He's always careful around her. Never knows when she's going to decide it's time to leave.  
"Why do you want my tree?"  
"Oh, well, I'm playing a game. I'm an agent called Derrick Storm spying for the American government in Russia, and I'm trying to get into the secret base," he informs her happily.  
Her eyebrow climbs higher, intending to portray her scepticism, but she looks quite interested in spite of herself. Reserved and clever or not, she is still five. And at five, even if you have ruled that you must be addressed by your last name, you cannot help but love games.  
Castle spies his opening and moves in quickly. "You can play too, if you want, Beckett. I'll help you pick a name. See, my agent name is Derrick, because it has 'rick' in it. Your name starts with a 'K', so…" Castle thinks, hard. Beckett's name is already perfect for her. What could he possibly choose that could even be a worthy contender for her to use? "How about Nikki? That has lots of 'K's."  
She ponders it for a moment. "Nikki? All right. But I don't want to be a secret agent. I want to be a Detective." Her eyes glow with the prospect for a moment, and he adds this to the mental list of things he knows about her (it will go on the real list later). _Likes Detectives.  
_Her next words, though, make his stomach fall. "Detectives and agents don't work together though, so…"  
"Then I'll change," Castle says hurriedly. "I was getting bored of being Derrick, anyway. I'll just pretend that he got killed and then I can be a new character instead. Look…" Castle, with an aura of great drama, violently jerks backwards as he pretends to have been shot. He crumples to the ground, gasping for a moment, and then goes quiet. "Rest in peace, Derrick," he rasps in the deepest and most solemn voice he can manage. He lies there for a moment, eyes closed, before springing back to his feet, full of energy, thrilled at Beckett's faintly amused expression. "See? He's dead. Now I can play as someone else, someone better… 'R'… Ooh, I know - _Rook, _like in chess. I'll be a Detective, too."  
She glares. "We can't both be detectives."  
Castle jumps tracks at top speed. "Well, I like writing, so what if I was a newspaper writer that wants to make a story about Detective Nikki? And follows her around to research his story but ends up solving crimes with her. Is that okay?"  
Boy, does he know it's a long shot, especially with the '_follows her around_' part.  
She thinks for a moment, her nose scrunching slightly (his heart sends in its formal resignation and quits working). Then, to his great surprise, she agrees.  
When she continues to look hesitant, however, an idea occurs to him. Much as he'd rather it was just them playing together, perhaps it would be better for her to be around other kids she's more comfortable with.  
"Tell you what," he suggests, "shall we go ask Kevin and Javi if they want to play, too? That way we can play in teams, and it'll be a lot more fun."  
She brightens (it's not quite a smile, it's not even close – but he's getting nearer, he can feel it). "Yes, let's do that." She dashes inside momentarily, deposits her book on the counter carefully, and rushes out the gate.  
Beckett doesn't look back to check if he's following. Not that she needs to, really. After knowing her around a day and a half, he'd follow her practically anywhere.  
_(He does. For years and years. Wherever Beckett goes, he goes too. He likes to think of himself as a guardian angel of sorts, watching over her no matter the time or place. Keeping her safe. Until one day, after loving her for years and years, he realises they are a lost cause. And that for everyone to be happy, or at least have a shot at happiness, he has to pick himself up, turn around, and get on with his life as well as he can. So he leaves. But that day, that time, it is Beckett that follows him.)  
_Ryan and Espo agree almost immediately, intrigued by the idea of secret agents and detectives and writers. They both decide to be cops, as they've seen some cool ones on this TV show Kevin's many sisters watch.  
When they break into two teams, fate is on Castle's side. Javi and Kevin immediately demand to be partners, proclaiming they will "take Castle down". He has no problem with this good-natured threat, as this objective means he is left with Beckett by default.

Castle loses track of time. Eventually, the game just becomes a blur of Ryan and Espo's pretend bullets _(In years to come, they laugh at what had seemed the logical arrangement of cops and detectives – who are relatively synonymous in some senses – being on opposing sides); _Beckett beside him; climbing trees; Beckett in front of him; wriggling under fences; and more Beckett. It doesn't really occur to him until she squirms through a miniscule gap in the Ryan's fence that he can't fit through how small she actually is. Yes, he's really quite tall for six, but she must be a little under average for five.  
It makes him want to hug her and hold her hand and stand in front her when the "evil cops" attack more than he already does.  
The darkness accumulates around the small troupe, creeping up without their noticing. One by one, they are called back to their homes, with Kevin and Javi disappearing first. Beckett and Castle continue to play a little longer, before the former decides she'd better head home.  
"See you tomorrow," Castle tells her. Well, it comes out as more of a question, really. _Will I get to see you again, Beckett? Am I going to be that lucky?  
_"Night," she replies, and strides away.  
Well, _night _isn't exactly _no, _is it?  
He grins.

* * *

**There you have it. Hope you liked it, I'm enjoying moving their friendship along a bit further. It'll be a slow road, but Castle will get there.**

**If you liked it (and if you hated it) please review. It's really great when I get to read someone's opinion of my work. Don't forget to send in any prompts you might have as to where you want the story to go next.**

**x. EM**


	6. 6 - Something of a Misadventure

**Hi all,**

**Sorry for the delay between chapters, I'm dealing with a lot of assessment right now (though you did get like 4 chapters in a row the other day). I hope you're all enjoying the story. This chapter is kind of the beginning of the proper development of the friendship between mini Castle and Beckett.**

**Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 6  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_He finds that the easiest way to reach her is through stories._  
Fact 2:  
_He sees her cry before he sees her smile._  
Fact 3:  
_He would do anything to make sure she never has to cry again.

Much to Castle's unending delight, the game of Nikki and Rook and the rogue cops outlasts that first day, and the small group continues to recreate the fantasy adventures over and over throughout the next week.  
It's slow progress, but he's starting to feel as if Beckett is becoming marginally more comfortable around him. He's yet to have a genuine grin directed at him, but he's managed to earn himself a half upturn of the mouth, a small quirk of the lips. That's enough for now.  
He's good friends with Kevin and Esposito, that's for sure. They're all quite different, but seem to mesh in an odd, neat sort of way. He gets on well with Jenny, too – you can't _not _like her. She kind of reminds him of a bunny – cute and sweet and inoffensive to everyone, easy to befriend.  
But Kate is his twilight zone. _He _likes _her _(more than he'd care to admit), no question. Castle, however, has not the faintest idea where he sits in her eyes. There are moments, like when they weave a plan of attack together, that he thinks he's won her approval. And then, there are other times, when she flits away at the end of the day, a word or two thrown casually over her shoulder in farewell.  
_Keep being there_ – that's what Stephanie had said. And he is. He is trying harder at this than he's ever tried at anything in his entire life.  
_(Kate tells him once how surprised she is he'd stuck around during those early days. "I wasn't exactly friendly," she laughs, but an underlying note of disbelief lurks within her tone. He assures her that he knew, even then, that she'd be worth it. And he was right, wasn't it? She has been worth it. Always)_

None of them are expecting it. It happens totally, completely out of the blue.  
They are playing Nikki and Rook and the cops.  
Kate's only just wriggled under the fence to the previously unexplored backyard of Royce (they'd all been being very quiet so as not to perturb him) and the rest of the troupe are getting ready to follow when they hear her noise of surprise, followed quickly by a cry of pain. It's not a squeal, a shriek or a scream – Kate Beckett would never indulge in such vocal activities, Castle knows. But this is the sound of one such exclamation being suppressed.  
Castle starts to climb under the fence too, determined to find that which is harming Beckett and make it get away from her.  
"No," he hears Beckett hiss. "Get back. There are ants here. Red ones… Ow – they're biting me. Don't come through, they'll bite you too."  
He can practically hear her grimace through the wooden planks of the fence. That doesn't sound good – are ants very dangerous? Venomous, perhaps? He doesn't know. He turns to Kevin and Javi. "Go get Stephanie or someone. Tell them that Beckett is being bitten by red ants."  
The two cousins nod in sync and dash off, hurrying over and around each other in an attempt to get help as quickly as possible. Anything bad enough to make Beckett say "ow" must at least be equal to the flame of a thousand dragons, or every one of the Caesar knives.  
And then, completely ignoring Beckett's earlier demands, he ducks under the fence.  
There is a huge mound of heaped dirt directly in front of him, and he has to stumble backwards immediately to avoid face-planting in it. The surface is alive and throbbing with hundreds of beady, lava-coloured ants; Beckett came through the fence at a different angle than he did – she must have fallen straight onto what is clearly a nest, and woken its unkindly residents.  
Kate is staggering a little to his left, backing herself up against the fence, trying to shake the ants that are crawling all over her left arm. He dashes over to her, tries to help. Under any other circumstances, he knows she would shove him off immediately, but not now. He brushes the little insects off of her as fast as he can; Castle has no idea what kind of ant they are, but he knows he's not going to let them bite Beckett.  
A hot lash of pain, like being branded, or having a white-hot needle pushed into his skin, sears up his arm from his wrist. One of the ants he was trying to rid Beckett of must have crawled onto him.  
He realises many other occupants of the nest are now swarming towards them, licking the ground like a wave of fire.  
He panics slightly. He's got no idea what to do. They aren't even supposed to be here, in Royce's yard. And while he thinks there's probably no such thing as _death by ant, _if one bite hurt as much as that one just did, he doesn't want to attain tens or hundreds. They have to get out of here, get away.  
Castle looks over at Beckett. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, but she makes no sound. She does strike him as the kind to cry silently.  
It kind of breaks his heart.  
There is a rotten plank in the fence just behind Beckett. He grabs it and yanks, hard, very hard. Then part of it comes away in his hand (it leaves a smattering of splinters and lacerations, but he doesn't find them on his palms until much later). He grabs Beckett by the waist, using her momentary surprise to push her through the new gap without protest.  
Once in the relative safety of the empty lot behind Royce's place, Castle spins Kate around, desperately trying to find any more of the little bugs, and get them away from her. He himself has sustained only three or four bites, which are incredibly painful and starting to swell. He can feel another of the tiny creatures crawling under his collar, preparing to strike again, but he'll shake it off later; he wants to make sure Kate's alright. She looks to have been stung at least eight times, he's sure someone as small as her cannot take too much venom.  
The ant at his neck bites him. He ignores it.  
At that moment, Stephanie and the boys reappear around the corner. The latter two look slightly out of breath, all appear very worried.  
"Oh, god," Stephanie groans, "those look like fire ant bites. I was bitten by one once on a Girl Scout's trip. We better get you back to your dad, Katie, you're covered in them."  
The Ryan sister grabs Kate by the hand and tugs her along after her, striding quickly towards the Beckett residence.  
Castle flicks the ant out from under his collar, wincing at the pain. Then he hurries along after the two girls, shoving the bitten hand into his pocket. They've got to worry about Kate first; if the grown-ups see he's been bitten too, then they'll be all over him as well, which means they won't be totally focused on taking care of Beckett, which is what they need to be doing.

"Katie, we're going to have to take you to the ER," says Jim Beckett, concern heavily lacing his features. "I don't know anything about fire ant bites - I don't know how dangerous they are. Can you tell me where you were when you were bitten, sweetie?"  
Castle, who has been hovering as close as he can without interrupting, points over to Royce's place. "We were there," he offers, hoping this is helpful, though failing to see how it is relevant to Kate obviously being in a lot of pain.  
Jim grabs Castle's outstretched hand, brushes a worn thumb next to the scattering of bites over his knuckles and eyeing the splinters and cuts on his palm.  
"You've been bitten too, kiddo," he says, frowning.  
"Nuh-uh," Castle assures him, despite the feeling that a sledgehammer made of nails is repeatedly slamming down on his tiny fist. "Nope, my hand always looks like that, sir."  
"Here, I'll call your mother down from your house…"Jim begins to offer, but Castle shakes his head.  
"She's at work in the city. She won't be back for hours," he tells him. "Go, Mr Beckett, sir," he says, making a small shooing motion with his uninjured hand. "Take Beck- Kate to the ER. I'll go if it still hurts when my mother gets home."  
Jim Beckett shakes his head. "What if you have a severe allergic reaction? Just come with me, I'll your mom on the way in."  
Castle shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, but Jim's already taking him by the shoulders, guiding him towards the car.

Beckett looks kind of miserable in the seat next to him, the echoes of tear tracks still gracing her cheeks despite her efforts to wipe them away, as if they were a stone monument to weakness. The bites on her arms are swelling, and he can see the fierce little frown that decorates her features in an attempt to block out the pain.  
Castle can't just let her sit like that with nothing to focus on but how much she hurts, so he decides to do the only thing he knows how to, the only thing he's good at.  
"Hey, Beckett?" he whispers, leaning towards her slightly. She glances over at him.  
"Yeah?" she mutters finally, sounding uncertain. Well, he reflects, uncertain is better than angry or reserved.  
"Can I tell you a story?"  
She nods wordlessly, and so he does. He begins, weaving a tale that's been brewing in his mind for the last week, ever since they've been playing the cop game.  
It continues the whole car trip, and through the wait in the Emergency Room.  
It is the story of a Detective, quick and clever and very beautiful, who has never left a crime unsolved, and never will. She hunts down crooks and killers with the partner she never wanted but slowly befriended (he christens this character with the first name of the man filling out a form beside him in the ER), Jameson Rook_.  
_She's called Nikki (this he already knew. But she needs a last name, and he gives it in honour of the only thing on his mind other than Kate right now: the burn of the ant bites).  
Nikki Heat. Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, partners in crime. Well, anti-crime.  
Together they are unstoppable, and no one ever gets away.  
_(Well, except for Nikki. She gets away from Rook again and again, year after year. Sometimes stories have happy endings, and sometimes they do not, and he worries his silent quest is doomed for the latter. For the longest of times, Rook believes never will catch up to her on this wild race she runs with life. Perhaps she is like a falling star – burning bright, beautiful, but fading, falling away too quickly to stop and allow herself to be loved by the likes of him. But it all comes together one day. That star finds a place in the sky, right next to him. And it is the best ending ever.)_

The perky young nurse wraps the offending bites on their arms and hands in loose white bandages to keep them from further irritation. She gives them each an injection, too. Beckett squeezes Castle's hand, hard, when the needle pierces her already searing skin. He knuckles almost crunch together.  
_(There are a few other times in his life when Kate holds onto his fingers that tight, but then, they are at the hospital for a very different reason.)  
_But Castle couldn't care less even if her grip hurt more than the stings or the scrapes; he doesn't care the contact between her and him only lasts a around ten seconds, and that it's highly probable she didn't even notice it.  
Because for those few moments, Kate Beckett is holding his hand.

* * *

**Hope you liked it. Please review/comment/send in a prompt. It keeps me motivated.**

**If you're still in the mood for something else to read, check out my other two stories:**

**1. Nothing to Worry About (Promise): **"Please tell me you did not sleep in the break room again." Castle is trying to reconfigure Beckett's priorities so that things like "sleeping" and "eating" are at the top, but Beckett's having none of it as the anniversary of her mother's death draws nearer. Told from alternating Castle/Beckett perspectives, I present a somewhat fluffy and very cute little chapter fic.

**2. [NEW FIC] Still Betting On Us, Boys?: **Ryan hands him the twenty. "Huh," he mutters, "I didn't think she'd take him back." But that wasn't the first time the partners had bet on Castle & Beckett, and it wouldn't be the last. A collection of wagers that Esposito and Ryan make on the little and big Caskett things. Of course, no matter what, they're betting that those two make it, always. (And they do). Cute Caskett.

**Thanks, guys. :)**

**x. M**


	7. 7 - The Coffee Shop Questor

**Hi you guys,**

**I hope you're still enjoying the story, I've had such an amazing response. I've made some cover art for it that you can check out on my tumblr, **

**Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and I think you'll like it too. Bear in mind, though, I've had a terrible fever all day, so perhaps it doesn't make as much sense as I think it does...**

**Note: I'm also experimenting with a new, double spacey formatting, so hopefully you find these easier to read.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 7  
****a caskett fanfiction**

Fact 1:  
_One can never have too many friends._

Fact 2:  
_There are times you do not realise something until it is too late._

Fact 3:  
_It is easy to accidentally start loving someone when you're not looking._

* * *

Castle's mother isn't able to meet them at the ER (he assures her over the phone that _yes, he is fine_), but she is waiting for them when they get home.

He watches largely without interest as Martha thanks Mr Beckett, but tunes in hurriedly at words sounding suspiciously like "repaying the favour" and "watching little Katie sometime for you". Normally he's fairly slack about remembering his mother's various callings and commitments, though this off-handed pledge is burned into his brain. She'd better come good on it.

He is then, highly regrettably, obliged to say goodnight to Kate (they were in the Emergency Room quite a long while, and it's dark now, but he hadn't noticed at the time because he was with her), and head home with his mother.

His hand throbs wildly, as does his neck.

So he shouldn't feel great, right? But he does.

He feels kind of like skipping, but figures he probably shouldn't because skipping is for girls. So he's been told. Not that he can imagine Beckett skipping around. Well, actually, he can, and it's really cute, but he knows she'd never do it in real life.

_(Except she does. Just once. Accidentally. Not for long – just a single skipped step, when she's really, really happy. He means to tease her about it, but it gets lost in the fact that the sky is bright and the trees are auburn and she's holding his hand. So, instead, it becomes one of those little memories he never lets go of, a single strand in the unfathomable patchwork that is _her_). _

* * *

Castle walks out his front door the next morning, and manages a grand total of three full, peaceful, windswept seconds before Ryan and Esposito come dashing by, the latter grabbing Castle by the wrist and tugging him after the two cousins.  
"Um, wha-"  
"Lanie's back!" Javi informs him excitedly, without breaking pace.

Castle figures that he's going to be dragged along no matter what, and that to avoid serious injury, he may as well start running too. Besides, he's heard little about the mysterious Lanie (other than the odd positive reference to something she has said in times gone by), and is interested to meet her.

They dash into the driveway of the newly arrived Lanie, only to view an event that truly shocks Castle.

It is not the sight of Lanie, who looks warm and nice and pretty much exactly as he expected, with the round face and deep eyes (although the quirked eyebrow is something of an unprecedented element).

It is not the presence of Kate Beckett, standing beside her and looking kind of impossibly perfect, though how she does that always manages to shock him a little bit (okay, a lot).

It is the fact that the two are hugging.

_Huh, _he thinks. So Beckett really does hug people. Wow. She laughs and smiles _and _hugs. If you're lucky.

God, how much he wants to be in Lanie's place right now. He's never even met the girl, never exchanged a single word with her, and he's already on Jealousy Level 1000.

The moment Kate releases Lanie (so maybe she does hugs after all, but they're not overly long ones), Ryan and Espo crash into her, wrapping the new arrival in one armed hugs and surrounding her with grins.

"How was California?" Espo asks her, still smiling like an idiot.  
"Ooh," Lanie replies cheerfully. "It was good fun. My aunt's really crazy. But, um, Javi, you want to introduce me to your friend first?"  
Esposito looks heartily confused for a moment, seeming to have momentarily forgotten Castle's existence in Lanie's presence.  
Beckett sighs in amusement, looking far more relaxed than usual. So relaxed, in fact, that she feels comfortable enough to reach over and grab Castle by the arm (his heart _actually stops _when she touches him_, _he could swear) and drag him over to stand in front of Lanie for inspection.  
"This is Castle," she tells her. "He just moved into 30."

Lanie nods, not gazing at him half as appraisingly as the others all did when they first met. "Hey," she says happily. "How do you like it here?"  
"Oh, so much," he responds, grinning. His eyes accidentally, involuntarily flick to Kate as he says it. Oops. Luckily, she's still watching Lanie for the other girl's verdict on him. Relief is very close to washing over him when he catches sight of Lanie's _uh-huh _eyebrow. Whoops. _She _saw that.

"Um, you were going to tell us about California?" Javier prompts her, unwittingly saving Castle from questioning.

Lanie flickers her eyes to the boy, and begins describing her holiday. But her gaze dances back to Castle, and he freezes up. What if she already hates him? It would probably only take one comment from Lanie to make Beckett never want to talk to him ever, ever again.

And then Lanie winks at him.

* * *

He gets along well with Lanie. She's funny and snarky and warm. She seems to like him right away, just as Kevin did. Yes, he decides. Lanie is definitely cool.

That afternoon, he catches sight of Beckett sitting in her back yard, reading her book under the tree, and is struck with a sudden idea.  
His mother is out, so there is no one to stop him. He dashes up to his room, and grabs his piggy bank. It's stashed full, because he's never really had much of a desire to spend it on anything. He does now, though.

Shaking a few coins to freedom, he dashes the few blocks up the road to the coffee shop.

It takes him a little while to get the barista's attention, as he's not tall enough to see over the counter.  
"Hey, little dude," the young guy says when he finally spots Castle. He's tall, and got cool brown hair that sticks up impossibly high, as if each strand were attached to the wings of a bird trying to fly away. "Have you got a mum with you?" His accent is different to those Castle's accustomed to hearing; he thinks it might possibly be English.  
"Nope," Castle tells him.  
"Cool. An adventure, huh?" he asks, his eyes lighting up. "You on a coffee quest, my man?"  
Castle likes this guy. He seems fun. "No. A hot chocolate… _quest. _Yes. One for me and one for my friend, please."  
"Okeydokey, coming right up." The guy (he can't be more than twenty-one, but to Castle he seems kind of like a giant) signals the girl working the machine with a grin (she looks around the barista's age, maybe a little younger), and gives her a tiny salute to go with it. "Say, little guy, I'm Jesse." He stretches a hand down over the counter to shake Castle's, as if Castle were an adult, too. It's a long way to reach, and he almost laughs, but he shakes Jesse's hand. "I'm Castle," he informs him. It's probably safe to tell the guy his name, because he came here once with his mom. And there's lots of people in the little shop. It feels warm and safe.  
"Castle. That's a nifty name, kid. I wish I had a name as cool as that. Is your mum waiting for you outside?" he asks. "You're not here alone, are you?"  
"My mum's at work."  
"Oh," Jesse frowns slightly. Perhaps he does not like the idea of Castle being unattended, or has some bad memories of his own. Castle has a sudden urge to write a backstory for him. "Well, if you're ever out wandering during the day and you get into a spot of trouble, you can come hide out here. There's a TV in the corner, and we'll watch out for you, okay? It's a small neighbourhood, and we're always full, so chances are you'll bump into someone who can take you home."  
"Thanks," Castle says. Jesse hands him the two hot chocolates.  
"Careful," he warns. "Very hot."  
"I hope so," Castle tells him, handing him the coins, "I'm paying for _hot_ chocolate."  
The barista laughs. He has one of those genuine laughs that makes Castle smile, too. "Hope you and your friend enjoy it."  
"I hope she does, too."  
Jesse grins knowingly down at him, taps the side of his nose. "Oh. This is _special _hot chocolate then, huh?"  
Castle nods vigorously, glad someone understands. "Yes. Very. I got her some from here before, and I think she liked it, so I'm going to bring her some more."  
"Good plan," the barista tells him sagely. "So you going to be back here on another chocolate quest, Castle?"  
"Hopefully."  
"Tell you what. Have a special membership card." Jesse picks up a scrap of blank paper from beside the cash register and grabs a pen, writing _Special Quest Membership Discount. Valid For Card Holder Only. Good For 2x Hot Chocolates Any Time.  
_He hands the paper to Castle, who laughs. "This isn't a real membership card. You just made it up."  
"I did," Jesse agrees cheerfully.  
"Why?"  
"Well," Jesse leans down and whispers conspiratorially to Castle. "I was once in a position very similar to yours, my friend. I had a girl who drove me absolutely crazy who I fell totally in love with, and she'd keep pushing me away and insist that everything had to be done alone. So I make her tea from the kettle that was too heavy for her to hold, because _that _was something she couldn't do herself, and needed me for. I used to do it every day. So I know how you feel, kid."  
"The girl," Castle murmurs. "What happened to her?"  
Jesse grins like an idiot. "See the girl who made your hot chocolate? Yeah? That's her. Do you see the shiny thing on her hand, Castle?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Well, that means I get to marry her one day soon."  
"Wow."  
"Yeah. I'm very lucky, Castle."  
"How do you fall in love?" he asks, wondering if it's a skill one acquires (at six, it does not occur to him that this is, perhaps, an odd question).  
Jesse just grins. "I don't know, mate. Sometimes people sneak up on you. Sometimes, you just keep spending time around them, and you think everything's exactly as it was, and then one day, you realise you fell in love when you weren't looking. Somewhere in the middle of laughing and crying and teasing and talking, you just end up loving them. It's the best, though."  
"Then you _are _lucky," Castle decides.  
"Oh, so much. I hope you're that lucky one day, with your friend."  
Castle doesn't notice as he is thanking Jesse and leaving with the hot chocolates, his special membership card nestled in his pocket. He doesn't notice for a long time. But sometimes you don't see things like this until too late.  
Because now, in a quiet place in the back of his mind, he is hoping too.

He heads back towards Number 29, ready to put his idea into action.

_(And, just in case you were wondering: it takes a lot of tears and time and half-smiles and things left unsaid for years that finally fly free, but one day, Richard Castle _is _that lucky). _

* * *

**Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Don't forget to comment/review/prompt. If you're interested, follow my tumblr for updates and sneak peeks at new chapters.**

**If you're still feeling casketty, check out my other stories.**

**x. M**


	8. 8 - The Castle & The Queen

**Hi guys,**

**Here's a new chapter for you all. I apologise in advance: the flash forwards this chapter (the glimpses of the future in brackets and italics) are a bit longer this time around. Sorry. It won't happen again.**

**Hope you catch my symbolism at the end of the chapter. Enjoy.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 4  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1: _Every fence should have a gap.  
_Fact 2:_ There is a time, when we are young, that we say what we feel and not what we should.  
_Fact 3: _Almost anything is worth one of Kate Beckett's smiles.

Castle wonders who built the fences in this neighbourhood – nearly every single one has quite a significantly sized hole at some point along its length, perfect for anyone under around eleven or twelve years of age (maybe thirteen if you were small and skinny) to slide through.  
Either the designers were anticipating that at some future date, the boy who lived in number 30 would become utterly fascinated (he uses this word now, but it's a little bit more than simply _fascinated_, it's far deeper and more long-lasting than that – he just doesn't have a name for it yet) with girl from 29, and that he would highly appreciate an easier means of commute between their houses to talk to her than having to climb the fence. Or, perhaps, they simply were terrible at their jobs. Either way, he'd like to thank them.  
_(Due to a series of growth spurts early on, it doesn't take Castle very long to outgrow the gap in the shared fence that separates him from her. But he finds ways around it. He builds a small, sturdy wooden ledge that he nails to the top of the fence, directly outside of Kate's window, where he can sit at night and talk to her as she leans out over the sill while they're both supposed to be sleeping. It also allows him to conveniently vault back to his side and hide should Kate's parents come and check on her. Eventually, of course, the ledge becomes obsolete, because in a city not so far from where they are now, they end up having the same bedroom window. No more fences between them. And still more years into that 'eventually', when Beckett and Castle are no longer quite alone, he is sure to buy a house with a hole in the fence. The idea that incredible luck runs in the family is ridiculous, of course. But he makes sure to buy one with a fence like that anyway, just, you know, in case.)  
_The two hot chocolates in his hands and the box under his arm, Castle happily wriggles through the space in the wooden planks, hope welling eagerly in his chest as he does so.  
Kate's still nestled in the roots of the tree, reading. Intense concentration is scrawled over her face, a cute little frown settling over her as her lips move in an attempt to sound out a word.  
"What's the word?" Castle asks, hoping she just hasn't noticed him, and isn't straight out ignoring his presence.  
"Gra-ck-ee-ouse-lee," she tells him, after starting briefly in surprise.  
"Let me see?" he reaches out a hand for the book, expecting her to tug it closer to her chest. She does hand it to him, though.  
"Graciously," he clarifies. "It means to do something with grace. For example, _could you graciously accept this hot chocolate?_"  
A small smirk flits across the very corner of her mouth, perhaps not enough for most to notice but enough for him. He holds out the hot drink and she takes it, to her credit, very graciously. Not that Kate Beckett could manage to do something _without _grace.  
He plonks down in front of her, setting her book back beside her and being careful to keep her place.  
"I brought a game," Castle informs her, rattling the box under his arm.  
She looks suspicious. "I don't like most board games," she informs him. "They're mostly dull and incredibly uneventful."  
"Don't worry, this is a tactical game. It's only for smart people. And you're very smart, so I thought maybe you'd like it."  
He's not actually trying to flatter her into playing with him. In hindsight, it might not have been the best thing to say. It just sort of came out. Because, you know, he really meant it.  
_(It doesn't take long for Castle to get a handle on accidentally saying things he really means. Once things start cropping into his head that are very, very real, things that are permanent like "I love you," and ideas like 'forever', he realises he can't just tell her he thinks she's beautiful and pretty much perfect. Things like that can't just pop out of his mouth like they did that day when he was innocent and hopeful and six years old. Because Kate Beckett is that one incredible, bright star that looks almost near enough to touch, but the closer you get, the more you begin to understand it is really light years away, and that the farthest you will get is seeing it shine, and loving it more than anything. He does crack, though, after a long, long while of trying very hard. Things you mean as much as he meant 'always' have a way of coming forth in the end. Castle says it all, and then he leaves. But she finds him again, and tells him that they are young, and she can't quite say any of that back yet, even if she means it too. She promises him 'one day'. And that's good enough for him. He waits, and that day comes, and so does every day after it. That's how every day for the rest of his life becomes the best day ever.)_  
"What's it called?" Beckett mutters, her interest piquing at _tactical game._  
"Chess," he says promptly. "I was going to give you Cluedo, because it's a detective game, but it needs a lot of people, and so I figured we can play it with everyone else later. But since neither of us is really supposed to be running around in other people's yards this week until all our bites are all better, I figured we could get really good at this game."  
He'll take whatever he can get, so when she offers a small nod, he pulls out the checked board and a few handfuls of pieces, explaining them as they come. _Pawn, bishop, king, knight.  
_"Ooh," he tells her. "This one is my favourite piece."  
"Why?"  
"Well, it's got two names. It can be called a castle or a rook. That's me in real life, and me in the detective game we play."  
Beckett frowns. "That's not fair. You get a special piece. I bet there's no piece called Nikki, is there?"  
It's a no brainer. "You can be this one, Beckett." He holds up the tall figurine to the light. The one who holds the real power on the board.  
"What's that one?"  
"It's the queen."  
One. Two. Three. "All right." _And… _he officially has a new favourite piece. "What do these two do?"  
"Well, I mostly send my castles forward. They go back too, sometimes, though. They can only move in straight lines. But the queen? She rules. She's the best piece there is. She can go anywhere she wants on the board, whatever angle and however far. If she had a couple of turns to spare and was feeling kind of mean, she could move in circles around the rook if she wanted."  
Once they're all set up, they play. He teaches her various rules as they go along. He desperately wants to let her win _right now, _but he decides delayed gratification will be better. Not for her, though. For him. If she wins now, she'll be kind of happy, but she'll know he cheated. But if he lets her get really good (and he knows she will), and beat him all on her own, then she might smile or even laugh.  
And that would make losing about a hundred thousand million times better than winning.

* * *

**Hope you liked. Don't forget to review/comment/send in a prompt - they really do make my day, and I write the next chapter much faster when I know people are enjoying them.**

**For some reason, the notification email didn't go out, but for anyone who reads ****_Still Betting On Us, Boys? _****Chapter 4 is out.**

**PLEASE WEIGH IN ON SOME SUGGESTIONS: Please PM or Review what you think of some suggestions I've received.**  
- **Start a new fic which retells some moments of this one, but from Kate's perspective (& continue this fic)  
- Start a new fic which tells of events happening about ten years in the future of this one, mostly pre-flashforwards, when they're teenagers (& continue this fic)**

**x. M**


	9. 9 - License to Quest

**Hi guys,**

**Here's your new chapter. I'm still considering your responses to the ideas put to you last chapter. Again, we have a long flash forward, sorry.**

**Hope you enjoy.**

**PS: apologies if this doesn't make a lot of sense; I'm very sick and tired, and it's seems alright, but that may be my fever talking.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 9  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1: _Sometimes unfortunate events throw you together

_Fact 2: _Only sick-minded people joke about chocolate

_Fact 3: _He really does finish his quest one day

* * *

The plans for Cluedo fall flat when Espo, Ryan and Lanie all start coming down with the flu the next day. Ordinarily, this wouldn't stop Castle from playing with them, as he's got an iron immune system and gets better quickly, but apparently Lanie and the cousins are only up to doing boring things like sleeping.

He also loves only having Beckett to play with (or, rather, her only having him), but it irks him to know that she would have really enjoyed Cluedo, and that he can't give that amusement to her all by himself. Castle also knows that Beckett tends to be more comfortable and less reserved when they are surrounded by the whole group, and often becomes a bit quieter and snarkier when around just him. Not that he minds Snarky Beckett or Quiet Beckett, he likes every version of her really quite a lot (there has _got _to be a word for that feeling somewhere), but he wants her to feel relaxed, and happy, and doesn't think she's quite there yet with just the two of them.

Well, he'll make sure she gets there. Slowly. _Be there, _he reminds himself. That's the best he can do and he'll do it.

So that morning, he heads on down to the coffee house (this time, he cranes his head up to read the sign: _Sticks & Scones_), his special, hand-written not-quite-real pass safely in his pocket.

He hovers a little nervously in the entryway, until he spies Jesse frowning at the cash register, and breathes out. A non-scary adult he likes. Good.

Castle knows the counter is too high for Jesse to see him over, so he came prepared. He's securely taped two wooden rulers together to make an extra-long stick, to which he has attached a piece of paper that reads _HELLO _in his largest, albeit rather shaky, handwriting. He holds it up in the air as high as he can reach, and waves it around to attract the barista's attention.

"Oh, hey there, little Castle," Jesse grins down at him.  
"Hi, Jesse. May I have two hot chocolates, please?"  
"You certainly may. Before I ring this up, I must ask: do you have any coupons, discounts or memberships that you would like to add this to?"  
Castle grins. "I think so." He reaches into his pocket and hands Jesse the paper. "I thought you might have been joking about the membership but I brought it anyway."  
Jesse frowns. "What kind of a sick-minded person makes jokes about chocolate? No way. This is one hundred and ten percent valid, forever."

He flips it over and makes a small tally mark on the back of the paper.

"What are you doing?" Castle asks, craning his neck to see if his Questing pass is being disfigured in some way.  
"It's like those stamps, you know. You buy five, you get one free. Like that. Once you get five tally marks, I'll give you the sixth lot of hot chocolates for free."  
"Cool," Castle says.  
"Yep. Did your friend like the hot chocolate last time?"  
"Yes. We had them while we played chess."  
"Ah, chess. Smooth move, my friend." Castle looks at him blankly. "That was a joke, little guy. Cos you make moves in chess and it was also a… never mind. I'm going to retell you that joke in seven years, though, and you'll think I'm funny then."  
"Maybe."  
"You will. I'm a very funny guy. Everyone says so."  
"Everyone likes funny people, right?" Castle asks, leaning forward with a frown of curiosity.  
Jesse tilts his head. "Funny's good, yeah. Just make sure you're funny at the right time. Not, you know, when you're at a funeral. That's a bad idea. Unless it's my funeral. Please be funny then. I want a cool funeral."  
"I want to have my funeral in a rocket ship," Castle tells him. It's an issue he's considered quite a lot since reading murder stories.  
"That's nifty. Let's not make plans for that yet, though, hey?"  
"Okay. But if people like funny, how do you become funny? Because, I mean, most girls probably like funny too, yeah?" Castle thinks he deserves an award for his incredible subtlety, though apparently Jesse is not as easily hoodwinked as one might imagine.  
"This for you girl, Castle?"  
"She's not _my girl, _Jesse. Don't say it like that. That sounds _weird. _She's my friend. Well, nearly. I'm working on it."  
"Sorry. Is this for _not your girl._"  
"Okay, _not your girl_ just sounds _mean,_" Castle says. He liked the sound of it better when the 'not' didn't precede it. "But yes."  
Jesse shrugs. "I don't think I can help you. Just say what you think is right at the time. Doesn't matter if it's funny or silly or just nice. But never say something mean, okay? Ever."  
Castle frowns. "What could I say to Beckett that could be mean? There's nothing wrong with her. She's perfect."  
Handing him the hot chocolates, Jesse smiles, and gives him a wink. "That's it, kid. Off you go. Have fun."  
"See you tomorrow," Castle calls over his shoulder as he walks out of the warm coffee house and into the cold whisper of the street.

_(And he does see him tomorrow. Castle becomes a very familiar face at the coffee house. He gets his two hot chocolates every single time, and never misses a beat. He goes to Jesse's wedding, and when he is older, he gets to hold the man's son. One day, long after the hot chocolates have turned to coffees, Castle comes in to say goodbye to Jesse, and then leaves town. The next day, a tallish girl with dark brown hair comes into the place and orders one hot chocolate. "For old time's sake," she says. She cries. Jesse desperately wants to tell her to go after the boy who has practically bought a half-share in the establishment over the last decade, but he doesn't. It's not up to him and it's not up to Castle, either, anymore. But things work out, as they are wont to do in the greatest of love stories. Years after they move to the big city, those two come back to the coffee house. Jesse almost doesn't recognise Castle until he hands over a very battered Questing pass, and pulls out his wallet. "You're on your fifth one, mate," Jesse tells him, grinning. "It's free." But Castle shakes his head. "That's not me using the pass, Jess. That's me giving it back." The boy who became a man when Jesse wasn't quite looking reaches out and takes the hand of the girl beside him. Shows the older man the diamond sitting on her finger. "See that ring? That means I get to marry her one day, soon," Castle echoes words from a long while ago. "Quest complete.")_

* * *

This time, when he ducks through the gap in their shared fence and into her yard, he can't see her. Apprehension momentarily washes over him. If she's inside her house, then he'll have to go find her, and while he's met Jim Beckett, he has no idea what her mother is like. Though, he supposes, she did make Kate laugh, so she must be pretty special. Maybe she'll teach him how to make her daughter laugh, too.

"Hi, Castle," says a voice from above him. He starts, and flicks his gaze upward. Kate is perched in her tree, her back resting on a branch and her legs perpendicular to her torso as they rest along the length of the trunk.

"Hello." He realises this is the first time she has greeted him first, rather than him greeting her. It makes it about ten million times happier than it actually should. "I brought hot chocolate and chess," he tells her.

"Oh, good," she responds, and flashes him a half smile, which exists for less time than a blink, but to him lasts a small forever.

His heart skips a little as he realises she is admitting that she enjoys it when he does this, brings these things to her and sits with her. Or at least finds it in some way interesting.

Beckett quickly scales her way back down the tree, with far more elegance than any child has a right to have. He thinks that perhaps she can fly, like Wendy and Peter Pan, and is just pretending to climb so as to prevent ordinary humans realising how remarkable and magical she is.

_Too late_, he thinks. Castle knows very little about Kate Beckett: she is both unfathomably remarkable and incredibly magical, and he wants to know every last detail of her back to front like a favourite book.

_(Just in case you were wondering: he does know her that well one day, just as she does him. He even _does _fill a book with her. And it is his favourite story of all time.)_

* * *

**Don't forget to review/comment/send a prompt! Hope you liked this chapter, another should be out soon. Also, to all the lovely followers who have written reviews: would you like me to reply? or would that be weird? I'm pretty new to this business, and I want to thank you for your comments, but am not sure how.**

**x. M**


	10. 10 - The Boy & The Princess

**Hey guys,**

**I hope you like this one. It's pretty late at night here, so it might not make total sense. Sorry.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 10  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:_ The best princesses slay their own dragons.

_Fact 2:_ They are in this story together.

_Fact 3:_ Happily ever afters do exist. And sometimes they're not horses and sunsets and kingdoms. Sometimes they're just one person so impossibly incredible that being with them is a happy ending in itself.

* * *

Castle wakes up, grinning like an idiot. The last, clinging tendrils of sleep hold him under the wave of hope and happiness that was brought by the dream.

Oh.

_Dream._

It feels as if someone popped the balloon rapidly swelling inside his chest. He thinks back, trying desperately to hang onto the fragments of the slumber-induced hallucination, so as to commit them to permanent memory. He'd done something in the dream, Castle recalls. Helped Kate in some way, perhaps? Or maybe just said something funny. Or clever. He doesn't remember.

And she'd smiled and laughed and hugged him.

Properly hugged him. Like, with both arms, for longer than four seconds and everything.

Best. Dream. Ever.

Castle half-wishes he was one of those crazy people in a white jacket who live in their dreams all the time. Of course, their dreams are probably nowhere near as perfect as his, but if they are, then he envies them. Though none of those crazy people know Kate, which makes them not even one billionth as lucky as he is.

* * *

Kate's not in her yard when he sticks his head through the fence, nor can he spot her in the tree. He walks around to her gate to see if she's nestled in the garden in front of house, leant up against the slats, like she was when he first suggested Nikki Heat.

She isn't.

He checks; her car is still in the drive way. Unless she's walked somewhere, she's still home.

Castle's gaze flicks to the door.

If he asks, there's only around a 33% chance it will be Kate who answers. Maybe even less.

His heart rate increases dramatically. He's happy to go over to Ryan and Espo's house, and talk to whomever answers, but this feels totally different, even though he's known Kate just as long and her parents have probably seen them playing together in the street or the backyard.  
Castle breathes out. He can do this. If things go according to plan, he'll have to see her parents all the time. May as well get used to them now.

_(Okay, so maybe things don't go _exactly _according to plan. In fact, he gives up on having a plan pretty quickly. You can't plan for things with someone as unprecedented as Kate Beckett. He never planned on meeting her. He just did. He never planned on loving her. He just did. He did, however, plan on spending the rest of his life with her. He did that, too.)_

He jumps up the front steps a little hesitantly, and knocks on the front door.

Jim Beckett answers. Castle is slightly relieved and a touch disappointed; Jim, he recognises, but he wants to meet this mother than can get Kate to smile with no effort at all. How he wishes everyone had such talent, so that Beckett would smiling all day every day, and then he would get to see her light up the world so often he'd almost get used to it.

Who is he kidding? Not even almost. He'd be surprised all over again, every time, that someone could be _that _beautiful, and make everything and everyone around them seem _that_ beautiful for a moment, too.

"Hi, sir," Castle stammers (_stammers, _honestly. What the _hell, _Castle?). "Can I – can I see Be-Kate, please?"  
"Sorry, Castle. Kate's sick with that bug the Ryan boys and Lanie came down with the other day. I'd let you go up to see her, but you'd probably end up with it too, and we can't have that," the man tells him, giving him a wry smile.  
"Oh, I don't mind," Castle tells him, before quickly adding, "I mean, I had the flu just before we moved here. The exact same thing. I swear. I'm immune. Completely. It's no fun being sick by yourself, sir. Unless Kate's asleep, 'cos I wouldn't want to wake her up. You're supposed to sleep when you're sick, apparently. I never do – can't sleep in the daytime."  
Jim nods. "Katie's like that. Never can sleep a wink after dawn, and when she's ill she just gets more tired and irritated until night comes around, then she's out like a light." He pauses. "You _sure _you've had this before, Castle? Your mother will have my head if you get sick, too."  
Castle laughs. "Even if I do get sick – _which I won't – _I'll just keep out of her way so she doesn't come down with it. I know how it works. Besides, Mr Beckett – we have to start school in two weeks. Wouldn't it be better for me to get sick now than when the term starts?"  
Mr Beckett sighs. "That reminds me of what my mother told me when I was ten. She sent me over to play with Marco, this boy with chicken pox, until I got sick, too. So I wouldn't get it when I was older, she said."  
"It's a very good argument. That's why I'm using it. Please can I go see her?"  
"All right. But don't play anything too exciting, I want her to be resting, even if she can't sleep."  
"Definitely. Promise. Oh, I have an idea. Can you wait just one second?"

Castle dashes off the front step and ducks out the gate, races back into his own yard, yanks the door open and darts up to his room. He grabs a handful of interesting books, and makes a beeline for the front door of Number 29.

"That was quick," Mr Beckett notes, smiling vaguely.  
"Yep," Castle agrees, and tactfully refrains from adding, _because I really, really want to see your daughter right _now_. Since, you know, she's pretty much the best thing ever._

Jim Beckett directs Castle up to his daughter's room, though their house is practically a carbon copy of Castle's, so he could've figured it out, anyway.

Outside her door, Castle balls his small hands up into fists. He hopes she doesn't get mad at him for coming to see her. Well, if she does want him to leave straight away, he can always climb out her window, across the fence and back to his garden. It would require a bit of stretching, but he could be gone really quite quickly.

He knocks tentatively, as if he expects the door to blow off its hinges at any second.

"Yeah?" a small voice offers from within.

He reckons that's good enough for a _come on in, _and quietly slips into the room. "Hey, Beckett," he says, giving her a half grin. He wishes he could give her a big, proper grin, because he really wants to every time he sees her, but he figures that would be inappropriate, because it might look like he's glad she's sick. Which he is definitely _not _glad about. Castle can't help thinking she still looks perfect, though, even pale and tired and curled up under a small hoard of blankets. How does she _do _that? When he's sick, he looks like he's been run over by a semi-trailer and mauled by an insane poodle. She just seems a slightly frailer version of impossibly beautiful.

"Oh. Hello, Castle."  
Well, she doesn't sound _displeased. _That's good. He can't quite decipher her tone, though. "I brought books, Beckett. I figured you were probably bored, up here, all by yourself. And I know it's hard to read when you're sick, 'cos all the words float around and go all blurry, but I can read to you, if you want. I'm good at reading out loud, I promise."  
He expects, _no. _He expects, _go away. _He does not expect, "Okay."  
"Okay?"  
"That's what I said. Have you changed your mind?" she tilts her head, curious.  
"No! No. _No. _Um, can I sit on this chair, or do I sit on the floor?"  
"Don't be silly, use the chair. But don't come too close. You'll get sick," she warns.  
Is she just being polite, or does she actually care if he gets sick? He decides not to think about it, because it'll just send him off on some excited tangent that gets his heart thudding to hard and kind of irregularly like it always does when he's with her (he still doesn't know why, or what that feeling's called).  
"I don't care. Besides, if I sit too far away, you won't be able to hear me. Okay, which one do you want to read? I have _And Then There Were None, _some _Sherlock Holmes, Grimm's Fairytales -_"  
"Can you make one up? You're good at making up stories, you know, when we play detectives and stuff. I like those ones."  
This sends enough of a buzz through his veins to allow him to complete twenty decathlons end to end. Wow. He can do something that Kate Beckett _likes. _If she likes the ones he makes up, he will make one up for her every day. Or two. Or three. However many she wants.

_(Castle does make up story after story for the girl from Number 29. But sometimes, when he is older, when is alone and lets his guard down, he makes up tales not _for_ her, but _about_ her. The kinds of stories with her hearing him in all the little ways he accidentally says "I love you," every day. The sort where there are words like, "I love you, too." The ones where you have to write them down because it would be a crime not to remember them. Because things as magical as that should be able to be relived a hundred times, and then again. Kate finds that box, one day when she's sixteen or seventeen or so - the one with page after page of stories of them that Castle wrote at three in the morning when he couldn't fall asleep because he knew it would be filled with false happy endings he couldn't quite reach, that would disappear with the sun but linger over him all day. Kate cries when she reads some of them, wants to tell him how beautiful they are. The ones he wrote when he was a kid get to her especially – perfect, idealistic, little dreams that are about every happy thing he could imagine. Filled with hope and adventure and friendship. She wants to tell him that she can't believe he's wanted this since he was seven years old, that first time he really, really thought about it. But she can't, of course. Because Castle's gone. He left. He packed a bag and bought a ticket and left a note below their tree because he'd decided it would be better not to say goodbye in person. It is that moment, looking down at those words that she _cannot stand _to let stay only a story, only a figment of his imagination, that she realises that she needs to go after him so badly she can hardly breathe. Because, you know, he's Richard Castle and she's Kate Beckett, and they just _work. _And he's always known that. Always.)_

"All right. I'll make one up. Okay. There was once a dragon, big and strong, as tall as a skyscraper and as wide as a football field. It had scales the colour of broken water -"  
"You can't break water," she points out, big brown eyes exhausted but sceptical.  
"Sure you can. It gets all shimmery and stuff."  
"That's reflection."  
"Hush, Beckett. Reflection doesn't sound as cool. Anyway, there was also a princess, who lived in a tower -"  
"Ew, Castle, I hate these ones. I don't like it when the princess is all helpless and the prince comes in and saves her -"  
"Just let me finish, Beckett. Okay. Inside the princess's tower, the walls were lined with weapons. Because, you see, in the princess's kingdom, which was only ruled by queens and never by kings, you had to prove that you were strong enough to protect the people before you took the throne. So, at the age of nineteen, you were locked in a tower at the edge of the kingdom, from where you were not to return until you had the head of one of evil dragons that ruled there."  
"Oh, okay. I like this story better now."  
"This princess was called Kate, and -"  
"I'm in it?"  
"Yeah. Is that okay?"  
"Yes. It's funny. Are you in it?" she asks, tilting her head in a fashion that makes her a lot cuter and rather less like a badass dragon slaying princess. He doesn't say that, though.  
"Um. Not yet. But I can be. Do you want me to be?"  
"Yes. Just like Nikki and Rook."  
His heart screeches off the rails and over the cliff. Maybe she's just friendlier and more open when she's sick, and she'll be more reserved again tomorrow. Or maybe he's passed some kind of evaluation he doesn't know about.  
"Okay. Well, once a week, a boy from a neighbouring village would bring Princess Kate food, water and firewood, so that she could use all her time trying to figure out how to slay the dragon and not have to worry about that kind of boring stuff. His name was Castle, and his own brother had been eaten by one of the dragons…"  
"That's sad," Kate says, looking suddenly disappointed.  
"It makes him a tragic hero," Castle informs her sagely. "But if you don't like it, I can change it."  
"No. I didn't say I didn't like it. I just said it was sad. Sad is good, sometimes."  
He grins. "All right, Beckett. Anyway, one day, the errand boy Castle asked the princess…" Castle continues for what feels like hours and hours, weaving the plot and sewing seeds of drama.

By some miracle, when he talks softer and more soothing, her eyes begin to drift shut, and she fades away to the land of sleep, where the fighting of dragons seems much more real.

And when Castle is very, very sure Kate is completely asleep, when she is breathing evenly and her eyes are closed, so quietly he is sure she will never be able to hear him, he adds, "… and the errand boy Castle became the court's story-teller and the princess Kate became the best queen there ever was or ever would be. And they lived happily ever after."

_(He doesn't find out until years later that Kate did hear him. She always was a light sleeper, and had been wading through the twilight zone between sleeping and waking, and his words had got through. The funny thing is, though, Castle realises, that it was those words spoken as a young child that saved him. That got him a giant leap closer to Her. Because to a five year old Kate, 'ever after' sounded kind of like 'being there', like being someone she can count on, for a very, very long time. And though it was never her plan, it ends up being for always.)_

* * *

**Don't forget to review/comment/send in a prompt. I really hope you enjoyed reading.**

**xM**


	11. 11 - Defining The Indescribable

**Hi, you guys,**

**Here's another chapter for you all. No Kate, unfortunately, just Castle figuring some stuff out.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 11  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1: _You can read many strange things in books.

_Fact 2: _Knowing is never easy.

_Fact 3: _Love is no faucet.

* * *

"Mother," Castle asks, his legs swinging back and forth as he perches on the countertop, staring at his tea as he waits for it to cool enough to drink, "what does it mean for someone to be the love of your life?"  
Martha gives him a considered look, sipping at her own mug. "Where'd you get that from, kiddo?"  
"I read it," he tells her. "Down at the bookstore. It was on the back of one of the books. It looked like a boring book, to be honest. I only picked it up because I thought it was filed on the wrong shelf. I was right. Someone had just shoved it in the mystery section. But anyway, it said something about _finding Mr Right _and _the love of her life. _Who is Mr Right, mother? Is he famous? Do you know him?"  
Martha laughs drily. "Oh, Richard, I wish. No, kid… the love of someone's life is… Well, you know how you can love a lot of people, kiddo?"  
"Yeah," he replies, although he doesn't _really _know. He knows in theory. The only person he's ever been around long enough to _really _love is his mother.  
"Well, the love of your life… How do I put this… It's the person you love the most in the world. Out of everyone. Ever. You don't have to know them for your whole life; sometimes you might only meet them once. Basically, Richard, they're your favourite person on the whole planet."  
"So that makes Batman the love of Javier's life?" Castle asks, tilting his head in confusion.  
Martha laughs. "Oh, no, Richard, when people say _the love of your life, _they tend to mean a different kind of relationship than friends or idols. It's more like someone you want to marry, kiddo."  
"When do you get to meet them?" Castle asks, excited.  
Martha shrugs. "Some people never meet them. Some people meet them when they've very young. Sometimes not until they're old."  
"Can you meet them when you're six?" Castle queries subtly, an idea occurring to him.  
Well, nothing as loose and unformed as simply an _idea. _More of a face. A name. A person.  
"You can meet them any time."  
"Do you know it when you meet them?"  
"I'm not sure. I suppose some people know right from the very beginning. Some people might take a long time to figure it out." Martha frowns. "Where's all this coming from? Why the sudden interest?"  
"Just curious," he tells her hurriedly. "I am at a very important developmental stage where I absorb a lot of information from my environment. Did you know that? I read _that _in one of the books, too."  
His mother wrinkles her nose. "I'm not sure I like the idea of you going to the bookstore all alone while I'm out at work."  
Castle shrugs. "It's only a little way away, and it's right next to the coffee shop. I'm fine. But I'll take Kate with me once she's better, too. And maybe Javi and Kev, but they're not as interested in books. Kate is, though. She likes lots of cool things. Anyway, I'm going upstairs to write."

He hops off the counter, grabs his mug and skates along the hall and up to his room.

He sits in his chair, staring at the blank paper in front of him.

Richard Castle doesn't know much about love. He knows it's something that exists between people, and that sometimes it lasts moments and sometimes it lasts lifetimes. But he doesn't _get _it. How does someone qualify to be loved? Do you have to, say, know them for eighteen months minimum, and then you love them automatically? Do they have to give you a Christmas present? Do you have to hug each other every day?  
What does it feel like? There are lots of different kinds of love, he's sure of that. There's how he loves his mother; and then there's how he loves the dad he's never met; and how those boys and girls on TV love each other, the kind that means kissing and getting married.  
Can you just _love someone straight away? _Just _because_? Well, that makes it sound like it's for no reason at all. What if they're just beautiful and clever and smart and funny and good at things and interesting and unprecedented and curious and unfathomable and totally perfect?

He'll have to do some research, he decides. That's the best way to work out anything.

So he goes to the only grown up who has ever really talked to him about love like he knows what it is and it's precious.

* * *

"Hi, Castle," Jesse grins. "Shall I get the chocolate?"  
Castle shakes his head. "Nope. Not today. She's sick, and I don't think hot chocolate is good for sick people."  
The older boy frowns. "That's too bad. She got that flu that all the kids have been getting? My girl's little brother's had a fever at double sea level for two days now."  
Castle winces in sympathy. "Yeah. I sat with her yesterday and we read stories, but I think it'll be better if she sleeps today so that she can get better and we can play again."  
"Man with a plan. I like it. So, if not for Questing hot chocolate, what brings you to my humble establishment, little guy?" Jesse asks, leaning forward on the counter as Castle hops up onto one of the stools. It's been a slow day today, and only one or two customers are languishing in the coffee house. Almost everything as of yet has been taken to go.  
"I have a question."  
"Fire away."  
"How do you qualify for love?" Castle asks, resting his chin on the granite table top. "Does someone pass a test to make you love them? Do they have to have a special colour of hair? What makes it happen? Is there a limit to how many people you can love? Can you use them all up? Can you love some people more than others?"  
"Slow up, bro, I'm not Jane Austen."  
"Who?"  
"Never mind. She's a very famous female writer from the seventeen hundreds, I think. Maybe eighteen hundreds? I'm not the one to ask about this. Austen's not exactly my forte. Anyway, no, Castle there's no limit to how many people you can love. Technically, you could love _everyone. _And I can't tell you what makes you love someone. You just _do. _Sometimes you can even love someone, but not like them. Or you can love them, but they don't love you back."  
"Does that matter, though? Can't you just keep on loving them?" Castle asks.  
Jesse nods, sighing. "Love is no faucet, kid. You can't turn it on and off and make it stronger and lighter as you please."

_(At six, that doesn't really seem like an issue to Castle. But later, when it's no longer a stretch to reach the bar stools and the HELLO sign has been long torn down and the rulers used in geometry, he does come to wish that love were a faucet. That he could simply… turn off loving Kate Beckett. Make it stop. He can't, though. But even later still, when the stools at the coffee counter are almost too tight a fit, he's glad he never found a way to build a wall and shut the love off, because if he had, she wouldn't be here, holding his hand, and he wouldn't be able to feel that warm metal ring that promises every tomorrow will be the very best day of his life.)_

"How do I know if I love someone?" Castle presses shyly.  
"Well, you're only a kid, so you get the best kind of love: platonic love. It's easy to keep a hold of and it's not messy, and it makes everything a lot better. I suppose you love someone if you have thoughts like, _I better remember to tell them this, they'll think it's funny, _or _I wonder what they're doing right now, _or _I wish I was where they were, or that they were here._"  
"Just like that? That's all love is?"  
Jesse shrugs. "Love is wanting someone to be happy even if it means you're unhappy. Love is trying to hold someone up, even if they're too heavy. It's wanting to be there even if the thing is little and stupid and hardly worth remembering. And it's trust and time and the small things you know."  
"And it's good?" he phrases it like a question, but he thinks he knows.  
"It's the best."

_(Yeah. It is.)_

* * *

**Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Next Time on TSF (ALS): Castle takes Beckett to the bookstore.**

**Don't forget to review/comment/send in a prompt! **

**x.M**


	12. 12 - Light Up This Whole Town

**Hi guys, **

**This chapter has been one of the most fun to write, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 12  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1: _She is unpredictable.

_Fact 2: _Traditions can be forged in companionable silence.

_Fact 3: _There are things so bright they make the sun look as if it were doing a second-rate job.

* * *

"Come on, Beckett, come _on,_" Castle chants, practically leaping around in excitement. The bookstore is now merely a block away. She's going to love it. Why is she walking so slowly? Doesn't she understand that in a few more steps, he'll be able to watch that almost-smile glance across her face like refracted light as she flicks her gaze from the endless lines of novels, studies and artworks back to him?  
"Shut up, Castle, my legs aren't as long as yours are," Beckett glares.

He sighs, and slows his pace. She's right. He's practically half a foot taller than her, and she's probably still all worn out from being sick, even though she had a much lighter case of the flu than the kids, who are still very ill, apparently.

He can manage to wait for that not-quite smile.

It's hard, though, especially since walking beside her gives him an almost uncontrollable and highly unprecedented urge to take her small hand in his.

She'd kill him if he did.

It would be worth it.

His skeleton would sit in its pint-sized coffin with a huge grin on its face forever. Of course, all skulls look to be grinning, but theirs are sinister. His would be a happy grin. And then scientists would dig him up and be able to diagnose him quickly: _ah, _they would say, on seeing his expression, _this boy clearly knew Kate Beckett. Poor kid. Never stood a chance _(because Castle is 210% sure that Beckett will soon become internationally famous without even trying, probably for one of those little perfect thing she does, or because she will accomplish something great with that extraordinary determination of hers. History will remember her so well that these imaginary archaeologists and scientists stumbling upon his corpse will undoubtedly not even have to refer to a text book to recognise the symptoms of one lucky enough to know her).

Castle does attempt to restrain himself, however. While he staves off the instinct quite effectively, he compromises by _accidentally _letting the back of his hand brush hers every few minutes, just infrequently enough that she won't know he's doing it on purpose. Every time they touch, funny and inexplicable tingles, like tiny supernovas bursting in his capillaries, travel up his arm to his brain, as if his fingers were excitedly shouting, _"Look, Brain! Look! We just nudged Kate's hand for, like, 0.02 seconds! Wow!" _Normally Castle doesn't much like pins and needles, but these are kind of different. They're happy little telegrams of energy flooding all through his body, waking up every muscle, nerve and organ and reminding them that today is a very good day.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going, or not?" Kate asks, only mildly disgruntled.  
He grins. "If you've never been up this way before, then I'm not going to tell you. It can be a surprise."  
"I don't like surprises," she informs him, scowling, though there's not _too _much venom in it.  
"You'll like this one. I promise."  
As they round the corner that takes them in front of Jesse's coffee shop, he tells her, "Okay, Beckett. Close your eyes."  
"No," she responds. "What if I walk into someone? Everyone here's bigger than I am; they'll just knock me right over. No thanks. I'd much rather keep my eyes open, if it's all the same to you."  
"But it's not all the same to me. I'll make sure you don't crash. Come on, Beckett, _please_?" he's not begging, but it's a close run thing. It's more like very insistent asking, with those puppy dog eyes that often work with adults, and a lot of girls, too.

She rolls her eyes in distaste, but finally lets her eyes slip shut. Her body is tense and braced for some kind of non-existent impending impact.  
For a moment, he can't believe that's she's doing as he's requested. "Okay," he murmurs, and, with great care, he reaches out and takes her shoulders in his hands, guiding her forward along the footpath. He almost thinks she'll hit him and shrug him away, but she doesn't. From a combination of this knowledge, and the fact that he can feel her warmth and her shirt and how small she is, Castle is so giddy that _he'll _be the one who falls over, eyes open or not.

"Okay, Beckett – open." He allows his hold on her to linger for less than a second past what is strictly necessary, because he's not sure when she'll next let him near her again.

They're standing in front of the display window at the second hand book shop right next to Jesse's café. _A Tale of Two Cities, Anne of Green Gables, Romeo and Juliet _and _To Kill a Mockingbird _gaze fondly down at the two of them, their words calling gently as if the Pied Piper were trapped within their pages.

"Oh, wow," Kate breathes, gazing through the glass, past the display and into the veritable wonderland of leather-wound tales beyond.

He should be able to watch that echo of a ghost of a grin like the sun rising in around _three… two… one…_

She turns back to him, just for a second before resuming her visual exploration of the shelves. But in that moment, she smiles.

Like actually, properly smiles.

There is no one else around. This smile is just for him. _He _did something that got her face to light up that way, and that makes it a thousand times better (if that were even possible, which it's not, because this is already the best thing ever).

The mid-morning light reflected from the display window seeps through her hair, giving her a halo for a brief fractal of time. He can hear every heaven of every religion arguing over whose angel she is, before finally concluding that she is too beautiful for just one to call their own.

The memory of that smile is wracking through his body like a shiver. His mind plays that half second on loop, and each time he is stunned and each time he is amazed.

If a visit to the bookstore makes her look at him with that expression, then the best possible plan at this point is to _buy _the bookstore. They might be reluctant to sell it to him at first, but Castle's thinks that once he explains the circumstances, they'll probably just give it to him for free.  
It's lucky that she grabs his by his jacket and tugs him after her when she wants to go inside, because he probably wouldn't have been able to move, otherwise.

* * *

Since it's a sleepy little town and everyone knows everyone, Jim Beckett had told them that Kate could go with Castle anywhere within a three block radius, as long as told him where they were headed and came back every hour to check in.

Castle had had to whisper to Jim their destination, so as not to ruin the surprise. He'd felt a bit silly then, especially caught under Beckett's sceptical gaze, but he's so glad he kept it a secret now.

The warmth of the bookstore washes over them as they step inside, as does the heavy, homely scent of hundreds of old pages, a dully spiced amalgamation of wisdom and experience.

"Kid's books are that way, mystery books are this way," he manages, once he finds his voice again.  
Kate turns to him, her eyes still clouded over with interest and excitement. "You've been here before?" she asks, tilting her head.  
He nods tentatively, wondering if she's mad at him. "Yes. I wanted to make sure we had something fun to do once you got better."  
"Oh," Beckett murmurs. "Thanks." Then she takes off, making a beeline for the mystery section.  
A smile _and _a 'thanks'_? _He wonders if Beckett still has a high fever, and is, in fact, delirious.

Castle follows her to the crime novels, even though he's glanced over most of the books there. Still, with Beckett there, every one of the blurbs he's read seems brand new.

He's still reeling a little from a few minutes ago, so while he stares at the pages of various books, he's capable of comprehending a very small percentage.

They sit in companionable silence, nestled in a corner of the store with a stack of books, occasionally pausing to read an interesting passage to the other.

_(This system is one they never really break. While there are times they read _to _each other, they normally find themselves buried deep within entirely different stories, though they always find time to provide the other with a quote of interest. It progresses from exchanged words as children to paper planes through their respective windows late at night, when they're both supposed to be sleeping, to emails in the early hours until it arrives back at words again, when all Castle has to do is nudge Kate awake beside him and read her something while she's still half asleep. She normally likes this, and does not begrudge him these interruptions, except for that one time when Castle wakes her up to tell her that it's important to be getting lots of sleep at this stage. That night she hits him on the shoulder and calls him a moron. It takes him around five minutes to work out what he's done wrong, and it is at this point he figures he'd be better off getting a little more sleep, too. So he turns off the light and rolls over, and even though he _is _a moron, she lets him pulls her close.)_

* * *

"Beckett, I'm going to buy this one, it's interesting," Castle tells her, tightening his hands around _The Orient Express. _He's glad for all those times he was bored while with her mother on tour, because all that time alone with books has made him an unusually excellent reader for a nine year old, let alone someone three years younger. "Do you want one?"  
She gazes down at the novel in her hands and scrunches her nose, and his heart twists because it's adorable. "Can't. I didn't bring any money."  
"That's okay, this was a surprise. I can get it for you. See? It's only fifty cents."  
But she's already shaking her head. "I don't want to take your money, Castle."

Huh. Perhaps she doesn't know he buys the hot chocolate. He makes a mental note to never, ever tell her, because he likes having something to spend his allowance on that he can give to her.

"Okay…" he mutters, trying to think up a way around this. "What if I _happen _to buy that one for _me, _and then I am nice enough to lend it to you? Would that be all right?"  
Beckett frowns, considering it for a moment. "That's fine," she responds, and hands him the book.

He grins at her, knowing it would be pushing his luck to hope she returns the movement.

She offers him a twitch of her lips, like an echo of a grander smile, or perhaps a peek at one that will eventually break through for something really, really good.

It's still enough to make him bounce on his heels as he heads up to the counter to purchase the frayed copies of aged mystery novels.

He'll never get bored of her smiles, he thinks, not the big ones and not the little ones.

_(And he's right.)_

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Don't forget to review/comment/leave a prompt.**

**I'm so pleased with the response to this story. It's only been up two weeks and it's already got over 60 readers (I'm new here, so I'm not sure if that's actually a decent amount, but I'm fairly pleased).**

**x M. **


	13. 13 - A Hiding Place

**Hi guys, **

**For those of you asking why Little Kate is aloof and reserved around Little Rick when he's clearly so nice to her, perhaps this chapter should clear a few things up...**

**Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 13  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_Everyone has a backstory.

_Fact 2:  
_Her smiles are like diamonds: always beautiful, always worth it and perhaps not as uncommon as he might have thought.

_Fact 3: _  
He is good at keeping promises.

* * *

"You know," Lanie tells Castle as they sneak around the corner together, the first two _IT's_ in a game of gang-up tag cross hide-and-seek, "you remind me of someone. Like, the way you look. Something about your face. It took me a long time to figure out who it was, but I've got it now."

They prowl closer the edge of the house, listening for the sharp breaths just a few feet away: another player to attack.

"Oh?" Castle asks, sort of hoping it's a slow runner concealed around the corner, because he doesn't _really _feel all that much like chasing anyone. He doesn't even want to be playing tag, but the others were eager to, so he didn't resist. "Who?"  
Lanie frowns slightly, a little knot of distaste forming between her eyebrows. "Hal. The boy who used to live in your house a year or so ago. He _hated _Kate. He used to pull her hair and push her over and throw rocks through her window to break her things. He nearly snapped her arm, once – twisted it so far around that her shoulder clicked out."  
Castle feels a sudden rush of uncontrollable hatred towards this unknown _Hal. _But Lanie's not finished. "I didn't quite pick it up at first, but you do look a lot like him. You have the same brown hair and blue eyes, and there's something about your nose that reminds me of him. We all liked Hal at first, you know. He was really nice to all of us, especially Beckett. But then he started getting angry all the time, and he'd hit you if you didn't agree with him on something. The boys called him the Hulk. Then one day Kate told him to stop hitting Kevin or _she'd_ hit _him, _and then after that… he just really, really _hated _her. It was like everything he did after that was to make her sad or make her hurt. I think he's the first person I knew who actually made Kate cry."

Castle swallows, desperately trying to block out the mental images that flood his mind. "Do you think – is that why… Do you reckon Beckett's noticed we look similar, too?"

Lanie nods. "I think that's why she's so shy around you. You're nice, but then again, so was Hal. And then he wasn't."

He grits his teeth and fists his hands. It hadn't really occurred to him that there might be another reason Kate is so hesitant around him – he'd just assumed she was shy, and took a while to warm up to new people. And Stephanie had also mentioned something about Beckett's cousin dying, so he'd thought perhaps she was scared to get attached to people.

He feels as if some all-powerful, celestial being is setting up a series of seemingly impossible hurdles in his path to befriending Kate Beckett.

It doesn't matter.

Almost impossible or not, he will find a way to jump them all.

It's Jenny hiding around the corner.

She starts when she sees them, and freezes slightly, perhaps realising that there's no way she can outrun Castle, who is really rather fast (mostly because he's taller than everyone else, even Espo, who's seven).

But just as he is about to reach out and tag the blonde girl, Kevin darts out from his hiding spot in the garden, grabs Jenny by the hand, and tugs her after him, away from Lanie and Castle.

"Come on, Jenny," Ryan calls, his fingers tight around hers as they sprint up the hill. "Run. We can get away!"

Castle and his companion deliberately chase after the two very, very slowly so as to allow them time to get away (Irish and his girl look too sweet together and neither of them have the heart to break it up). He can't help but be a little jealous that when Kevin holds _Jenny's _hand, she lets him, but if he tried that with Beckett, she'd hit him harder than Arnold Schwarzenegger does a fatal foe. And then glare at him for long enough for another civil war to be started and won.

_Good luck, Ryan, _he thinks.

After another few minutes of pacing around, they hear Esposito cough from his hiding spot under the front stairs of Lanie's house, and they take no pity on him.

* * *

Castle tagged Lanie first, so the next round they play, she's It.

Through observation and attentive listening from various hiding spots, he works out that after around seven minutes or so, she's got both the boys and Jenny over to the gang-up team.

He runs the short distance from the fence to under Beckett's back porch when he hears them coming.

He crawls beneath the wooden floorboards of the deck and then straightens to standing once he's under the Beckett house, which, like his, is elevated around a metre and a half off the ground to give some storage space for backyard items. Castle darts further along the dusty ground, trying to get away from the entrance to where the others might see him.

Luckily, he's not going _very _fast when he crashes into her. She grabs his arm to keep from falling over, and straightens up.

"Oh, Beckett, I'm sorry, I didn't see you – mmph."  
Kate has clapped her hand over his mouth. "Ssh, Castle. It's _dark_ here, not _soundproof_. They'll hear you."

He listens carefully, the sounds of feet and babbling voices getting louder as the other kids approach, and quieting as they head in another direction in pursuit of their prey.

Kate takes her hand back. His eyes are beginning to adjust to the dark, and he can see her face.

That's better.

"Good hiding spot you got here," he tells her.  
"Yep," she agrees, grinning and looking quite pleased with herself.

He starts. Perhaps she thinks he can't see her, or maybe she's forgotten she doesn't normally smile in front of him. She probably shouldn't do it. Things as beautiful as that are likely a public health hazard, and are liable to send him into cardiac arrest.

"You can share it," Kate informs him, "if you promise to be very quiet."  
He nods so fast his head nearly comes loose. "Of course," he whispers, demonstrating his ability for minimal sound. "I can be very quiet."  
"Good," she nods. Another small quirk of the lips.

Two smiles in twenty seconds.

Today _cannot be real. _

He's going to pass out. Or crow so loudly that the smiles change to glares as they both get caught by Lanie and the others.

They sit together in silence for a moment, listening out for the others. He can hear her even breathing, the small, sharp inhales of a tiny person with tiny lungs.

"Beckett," he murmurs finally, knowing it's rude to pry and she might get mad, but he has to _know_, "Lanie told me about the boy who used to live in my house. Hal."

She's sitting close enough that he can feel her freeze, feel the tension run through her body as if electricity was tumbling down on her like rain.

"She said something about me, about how I look – she said it reminds her of him." He pauses. "Do I remind you of him, too?"  
The air feels dead for an endless series of seconds as a response fails to come. Then – "Yes."  
"I'm sorry," he replies. There's not much he can do about how he looks, but he wants her to know that he'd never do anything horrible to her. He has to choose his words carefully, though – he has a vivid memory of one of his mother's girlfriends complaining to Martha in a heated rant about some chap saying _not all guys are like that. _Clearly, that is the sort of phrase to steer clear of, even if he doesn't really get what they were talking about. "Um," he begins, which is a real great start, "Beckett… I'm very, very sorry about how mean he was to you. And I want you to tell me, please, if anyone else ever makes you feel bad like that. Anyone. Especially if it's me. Because I will never, ever be mean to you on purpose. I promise. No matter what." Castle's not sure if what he's said is good enough to purge her mind of the connection between him and this horrible _Hal _boy, but it's the best he can think so say.  
"Thanks, Castle," she whispers back. "I know you're not Hal, it's just – sometimes -"

He doesn't want to ask for details about what else Hal said or did to Beckett to make her almost shudder when she thinks of him. The fact that he nearly broke her arm and teased her and broke her stuff is enough to make Castle's blood boil. If he finds out about anything else and he'll end up casually asking for Hal's current address and then maybe get surrounded by detectives for real.

"Connections in your head like that probably take a while to go away," he tells her. He knows it won't be overnight that he stops resembling that terror of a child in her mind. He says the next bit in a rush because he just wants her to _know_. "But I do hope we can be friends sometime, Beckett. I would really, really like to be friends."  
She offers him a soft little smile. So tiny the dark almost swallows it whole, but he manages to catch it. "We can be friends, Castle. Just like you're friends with all the others, too. I'm just very slow at being friends. I'm not good at trusting people quickly."  
He grins at her. "You don't have to trust me quickly," he tells her. "You can take as long as you need. I'm not going anywhere."

_(It takes a lot of effort, but not as much time as he might have expected, to steadfastly wedge himself into her life. Eventually, of course, he becomes irreplaceable. Being friends with Kate Beckett was always going to be tricky and it turns out that being best friends is even harder, even if loving her is ridiculously easy. Some days, very rarely, she feels open and safe and talks about things, and other times, she's so quiet and withdrawn all he can do is sit beside her. And true to his word, Castle stays with her, for years and years. Until one day he's gone. And while she has almost always known that the boy with whom she hid under the house that day is the most important person in her whole life, perhaps it took her too long to realise that the feeling that comes whenever Castle is around is more than just trust and familiarity, and it has a name… and that she's not even scared of that feeling anymore.)_

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed - now my mini Beckett has a bit more of a backstory. Hal is, of course, a nod to Hal Lockwood. **

**Don't forget to review/comment/send in a prompt.**

**I am also looking to start a new story, chapter fic, long fic or one shot, so if you have anything you'd like me to write, send it in, and I'll probably write it.**

**x M. **


	14. 14 - Potential Learning Difficulties

**Hi guys,**

**Sorry for the delay in updates, I've been studying for a series of horrific tests that made ending up on Lanie's table seem positively heavenly. **

**Still, here you all are. I hope you like the new ideas and characters I've included.**

* * *

_NOTE: I actually know like 0/100 about the American school system, what age you are in what grade and when you take your lunch breaks etc. so I'm just going to base their school off my primary school which was not American. I'm sorry if that irritates you, but it's impossible for me to try and make it realistic. Apologies.  
NOTE 2: I know Castle's original name was Rogers, and so Martha's last name is Rogers in the real show… However, for the purposes of this story, imagine they're actually called the Castles._

**This chapter is for KD: ****_finders readers, I guess._**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 14  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_It is always acceptable to be fashionably late.  
_Fact 2:  
_You never know when you might learn something.  
_Fact 3:  
_There is always the possibility of a divine miracle.

He glances in the mirror. Checks his hair. It's doing that funny sticky-up thing again, the one that makes him look like a somewhat perturbed and overly ruffled peacock. Castle momentarily debates doing something about it, and even makes a half-hearted attempt to flatten it, before giving up.  
If his hair has the motivation to reach for the sky, who is he to try and prevent it?  
He leaps down the stairs two at a time, excitement bubbling up in his chest as if his blood were soft drink.  
"I'm ready!" he calls out to his mother, wriggling slightly through a combination of anticipation and mild discomfort: the light blue button-up shirt he is wearing is vaguely itchy, but Martha had said that he had to be 'presentable' (_what, _he had asked, _is unpresentable about an Iron Man t-shirt?_)_. _  
"Darling, it's only seven-thirty. School doesn't _start _until quarter past eight," Martha replies loftily, floating to the room, accompanied by a person cloud of perfume.  
"But we have to be there _early _to meet with the principal, remember? _Early, _mother," he explains slowly, as if Martha were half his age and not over four times it.  
"Yes, yes, yes, well we can be fashionably late, now, can't we? Have some toast, Richard…"  
He grumbles to himself as he slides onto one the stool in front of the kitchen island, perching there as Martha brews herself coffee and flicks some bread into the toaster for him.  
His head snaps up as he hears the clang of a pot being dropped loudly in the Beckett house next door. As the ringing subsides, he finds himself wondering what is occurring within the walls of number 29, and vaguely wishing he were there to see events unfold.

"Richard will be learning the more junior section of our school, of course – the classrooms of our first and second graders are in the left wing of the school ground…" Castle tunes out to what the head master is saying. It's boring. It's not like Castle hasn't been to school before, he's not a gypsy.  
He's in second grade, which is exciting. He and the kids from his street hadn't really talked about going back to school (they were all in an intense state of denial), but he knows Ryan will be in his year level. Espo and Lanie are the grade above, so he knows he won't be in their class. Fingers crossed he ends up in the same class as Kevin, though, and maybe Jenny, too.  
He's excited. Pumped. His one regret is that he's fairly sure there is no way Kate will be in his class, unless there is the intervention of a divine miracle: he knows she's only five, so she's almost definitely in the first grade.  
"Rick has been put in Mr Montgomery's class. He's one of our best teachers, very good with the kids, very efficient at covering the curriculum and getting work done," declares Principal Markway, leading Castle and his mother down a corridor to a classroom with a blue door and a small plaque reading _12. _He opens the door, and calls into the room, "Mr Montgomery? We have a new student. If you could come out here for a moment, please?"  
Castle checks his watch and Mr Montgomery ducks out into the hallway. Class must have only started around fifteen minutes ago, but already noise is bubbling from the room like a cauldron.  
Mr Montgomery is tall and crisply dressed, looking to be in maybe his late fifties. "You must be Mr Castle," says the teacher, reaching down and shaking Castle's small hand before offering the same greeting to Martha. "I've been expecting you," he continues. "We've already got all the seats sorted out already. I like to sit everyone is alphabetical order, so hopefully you'll meet some new people, and make some new friends… ah, Richard, was it?"  
"Or Rick," his mother offers. Her son keeps his mouth shut. _He _prefers 'Castle', but apparently he's not allowed to tell grown-ups that.  
"Well, we've already got started, so if you're all right to let him go, Principal Markway and Mrs Castle, I'll go get him settled."  
Martha waves her hands in a dramatic _take him away _gesture, not bothering to correct the Mrs Castle bit. Mr Montgomery indicates for Castle to follow him inside.  
With a deep breath, Castle feels slightly like Frodo walking into Mordor.

He's put out about the whole _alphabetical seating _thing_, _because it means he won't be next to Kevin or Jenny – _Ryan, Castle _and_ O'Malley _are nowhere near each other in that sequence.  
This feeling lasts only around two seconds, because then a previously considered divine miracle occurs: "You'll be next to Kate Beckett, right up the front here…" Montgomery says, showing Castle to his desk and then walking back to the blackboard.  
Castle's jaw drops when he sees the space beside Beckett empty (the desks are those old, shared variety with the raiseable top to keep stationary in). She looks equally surprised to see him.  
"How come you're in this class? This is second grade," Castle asks, finally coming to his senses enough to sit down beside her on the wooden bench.  
She rolls her eyes at him. "I started school early. I got bored at home once everyone else went off to come here, so my mom enrolled me and I did first grade last year."  
"Cool," Castle responds, delighted. If he thought his last name was great before, he now realises it is actually the one of the best ones there is. Although he wouldn't really mind which last name he had at this point, so long as it started with _C. _Cooper, Cavanaugh, Carp, Collins. If it came after B, Beckett, he'd be happy.  
"So we're desk mates, huh?" he grins happily.  
"All that Sherlock you read must be rubbing off on you, Castle," Beckett responds a little dryly, though she doesn't seem opposed to the idea. He has a little trouble gaging her mood when she doesn't do outright things like smile or frown, so he'll just give himself the benefit of the doubt and assume she's secretly stoked to have him next to her.  
He knows _he's _over the moon (and back) about the new seating arrangement.  
She hands him one of the school's regulation scrapbook, and he looks at the school logo printed on the front. "Ooh, that's a long motto? P-p-prestigi- what does this even say? I don't know any of these words."  
"That's because it's in Latin. It's stupid and ridiculously long, and even most of the teachers can't pronounce it, so we just shorten it with something Mr Montgomery calls an _acronym,_" Beckett informs him.  
Castle brightens. "Oh, I know all about those. So that would mean you say it… P.R.E.C.I.N.C.T, right?"  
"Well, we just say PRECINCT if we have to talk about, yeah," she tells him.  
"Cool. I like the sound of that. Precinct. It's a much better name for this place than the Outer Central Livingston Heights Community Junior School. That'd a silly name that doesn't make a good acronym no matter how much you try."  
"I guess. Now hush," Beckett adds as Montgomery begins talking.  
She looks interestedly at the teacher, and he pretends to do the same, but out of the corner of his eye, he keeps glancing at her. The small frown that floats over her forehead if something doesn't make sense, or the raise of her eyebrows if she's particularly intrigued. It's fascinating.  
_(Later, in other classes in other years with other peers and no 'sit alphabetically' rules, Beckett and Castle manage to wind up next to each other anyway. Sometimes this is the result of strategic planning on Castle's part, and often the results of the 'assistance' of Ryan, Lanie, Jenny and Esposito. Eventually, however, when they are older, they sit together simply because _that is what they do. _They are Castle and Beckett. They are best friends, a team – partners, he jokes. Admittedly, the arrangement may not be the most beneficial for Castle's learning, but it's the best arrangement there could possibly be.)_  
A week ago, the others had been grumbling about returning to school. Castle hadn't been overly interested himself.  
But now, he thinks, this could turn out to be one of the most interesting school years of his life.  
_(He's wrong. It's just the beginning. Every school year he spends with Kate – so, all of them – is the most interesting.)_

* * *

**Yes. I did it. I packed them off to school. Much fun will ensue, though we will still follow them at home.**

**I hope you're all still enjoying the story. **

**If you're still feeling Casketty, I launched some new stories this week that you might want to check out:**

_**To Say I Love You, Little By Little: **__He can't say it. That little, three word phrase seems too unremarkable for what he means. For how much he means it. So, instead, he finds lots of little ways, little things. Words and gestures and actions that can only mean "I love you" if you're looking. He hopes that, one day, she'll see. A collection of all the ways Castle shows what he can't tell._

_**Almost, Nearly (But Never Quite): **__The first time (and second first time) Castle and Beckett met was at a book signing. Except it wasn't. Because sometimes, very, very rarely, there are people so inexplicably connected that they inevitably collide. Over and over. A collection of all the times fate and the streets of New York couldn't keep these two apart, a series of accidental firsts that neither remembers._

**Just head to my bio and read on if you're interested! Thanks for all your lovely reviews, comments and ideas. They make my day. I know I normally don't reply to reviews, cos I'm not sure if you want me to, but if you would like a reply, just tack a little R onto the end of your review, and I'll get back to you ASAP.**

**Thanks guys!**

**x. M**


	15. 15 - Dancing Queen

**Hi everyone,**

**Sorry for the huge delay in updates. As those of you who read my other stories will already know, I was off dealing with medical issues.  
Apologies.  
I'm trying to get back into the rhythm of Castle and writing, so this chapters might not be up there with the others. Please bear with me.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 15  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_Music can reach through windows

_Fact 2:  
_There is always an excuse to dance, if you look for it.

_Fact 3:  
_Maybe songs speak for the stars: they call to the star-crossed.

* * *

Castle jumps up and down in anticipation.

"Come on, come on, come _on, _mother! Just let me help! It'll be faster!" he cries, feeling as if someone has pumped him full of excitement in a nebulous form, but he's not big enough to hold it all.

"You can't help, Richard, you'll just get in the way – too many cooks ruin a party," Martha informs him, lugging the record player into the lounge room from the car.

He frowns. "I think it's _too many cooks spoil a broth, _mother," he gently corrects.

She makes a gesture of nonchalance with her head, as her hands are occupied. "They'd ruin a party too, kiddo. I find people in the food industry can be quite dour sorts."

"I don't know what that means."

"Never mind. All right. Let's head up these stairs, now, shall we? Richard, go a bit faster, I don't want to trip over you and drop this on that handsome little head of yours."

Castle jumps up the steps two at a time, leaping to his room at a speed he's pretty sure is his personal best. In his hand, he holds his precious cargo: a few Beatle's vinyls they bought at the same music store they acquired the record player.

He gazes at the cover of _Here Comes the Sun_ while he skates into his room, his mother following closely behind him.

"Can we set it up now? Can we set it up now, please? Please, mother?" Castle begs, his head full of the half-memories of tunes he will soon be hearing anew.

"Yes, yes, yes. And then we can dance. I need a bit of practice if I'm going to get that part on Broadway," Martha mutters.

"Deal, deal!" he agrees hurriedly, watching as his mother arranges the vinyl single in the small record player now situated on his desk. He stacks the other records next to it, and then waits, frozen, for the chords to fill the air.

After a slight, squeaking, grating noise, the notes begin rise, and bounce off the walls of his room, flowing out the windows and into the sky like water. Castle can feel the calls of the instruments reaching into his veins, and some other, abstract part of him he doesn't know the name of.

Martha holds out her hands to him, and he takes them. He's really quite a good dancer by now, having been helping his mother to learn her steps since he was old enough to stand on her feet and clutch her fingers.

They spin around his room together in a strange harmony, both smiling.

The song spins off into nothingness, but Castle still feels elated; he loves music, and though he prefers stories on paper, he thinks this method of conveying them is marvellous, too. His mother assures him that he gets this fascination from her, and he is inclined to agree, as he has no idea whether his father is a composer or a fire fighter.

"All right. You keep listening to your new records. I'm glad you like the player. It's your present for being so good about staying in this neighbourhood. I know how much you love moving around, and meeting all those people."

Castle shakes his head very, very fast, like a bobble head on a dashboard during an earthquake. "No, no, mother. I _love _living here."

She smiles airily at him. "You're sweet. I'm going to go put the kettle on," she tells him.

Castle knows by now that 'put the kettle on' is code for a discreet glass of wine, but he doesn't say anything, he just nods.

As she disappears, he happens to glance up, and catches sight of Beckett across the way, standing in her room, staring intently at his new  
record player from her window, as if waiting for it to begin again.

_Here Comes the Sun _indeed, he thinks.

"Beckett!" he calls, leaning out his window. In the back of his mind, the noises of his mother returning to her room register vaguely.

She starts, and for an irrational moment, his heart stops as he wonders whether she's going to fall.

"Um," she murmurs. "Yeah?"

"Did you like the song?" he asks, grinning at her.

Her expression turns suddenly shy, as if being caught listening to music was a crime. "Ye– yes. I did. It's nice. I don't often hear much music like that. My parents mostly keep the radio on the news channel."

Castle frowns. "But they're run by boring people with boring voices."

"Yes. I didn't know you could dance," Beckett adds.

He shrugs. He knows that some boys consider dancing only for girls, and be embarrassed, but Castle couldn't care less. "Yes. I've been helping my mother with her Broadway dances since I was a toddler. It's actually very fun."

"Really?" she asks, tilting her head in a most adorable fashion. His heart, like a song, skips a beat.

"Can't you dance, Beckett?"

After a brief moment of hesitation, she shakes her head, the short brown locks swishing like flowers in a breeze. "No. No one's ever taught me. It's never seemed important, really."

Castle opens his mouth in mock horror. "Don't be silly, Beckett. Dancing is _very_ important. What if Nikki and Rook have to go undercover at a White House party? What if you have to dance next to the bad guys to eavesdrop on their plans? It's a necessary skill. Come over here. I'll teach you how to dance," he promises, trying to keep the hope out of his voice.

Beckett looks torn. Indecisive. Not quite convinced to join him and make this a Very Good Day.

He suspects her reservations are not from a lack of interest, but rather the belief that dancing is silly, and not a Beckett-appropriate activity. Luckily, Castle has one last card up his sleeve that he's fairly sure will convince her. Something that will give her an excuse if she _does _want to learn. "Imagine if Nikki had to stay over by the drinks because she couldn't dance," he says, "and Rook had to listen to and remember the evil plan by himself? He'd probably get it wrong, and blow the case. He'd need Nikki there, because she's very smart and good things like spying."

Beckett sighs, the corners of her mouth twitching. "All right. I'll come over, and you can teach me. Please," she adds quickly.

He grins again (well, he never stopped in the first place, so really he just cranks up the wattage), and tries not to nod too hard.

Castle watches as she disappears from her window and heads out her bedroom door. He then glances around his room, and it occurs to him that it's really quite messy – nowhere near as neat as what he can see of Beckett's room through her window.

A panic seizes him. Girls like tidiness, don't they? He thinks they do. He knows Ryan's sisters get cross with Kevin if he leaves his toys all over the place.

Castle estimates he has about a minute before she walks in his bedroom door.

"Uh oh," he mutters to himself. He begins dashing around his room in a zigzag fashion, grabbing that bundled-up shirt, those discarded jeans, this Captain America figurine and shoving them into his closet. He zooms around in record time.

He hears her knock, and tugs open his door, and she edges her way inside. It occurs to him that while he's been to her room more than once, she's never been to his.

_(There's not exactly much lost time to make up for in this respect, but Castle and Beckett manage to make up for it – and then some - anyway. As they get older and grow closer, they spend an increasing percentage of their time in each other's rooms, reading, doing homework, and talking. And when they are older still, there is no possible way for them to visit each other's bedrooms, as Castle's and Beckett's are one and the same.)_

"Hello," he greets, despite having spoken to her not a moment ago. "Do you want to pick the song?" She shakes her head, her eyes scanning

the posters on his walls, her hands behind her back. "You can."

Castle hops over the record player, and fits _Penny Lane. _ "It's not too much of a dancing song, but you can dance to anything if you want."  
The player whirs, and for a moment, he thinks that perhaps it won't work. Then the opening chords begin to ring out.

"Okay," he begins, taking a tentative step towards Beckett. "I put my hand here. Is that okay? All right. Now your hand goes here. Yep, just like that. Okay, when I take a step forward with foot, you step back with that foot. Exactly. Perfect."

Castle makes an attempt to slow his heartbeat, calm his breathing. It doesn't work. She's _right there. _Like, really, really close.

They dance for a few moments, and she seems to pick it up quite quickly, a look of concentration fixed upon her face.

"Okay, you ready? I'm going to spin you," he tells her once she's looking slightly more confident with the basic steps.

"Wait, I don't know -" Beckett protests, but he ignores her, twirling her around.

Gravity appears to have a soft spot for Kate Beckett: she never seems to stumble or fall, and is apparently incapable of doing anything gracelessly.

"See?" Castle exclaims. "That was the best spin ever. You're a better dancer than my mother already. But please don't tell her I said that. She'll kill me."

Kate laughs.

He feels as if his spinal cord is a string that has been pulled tight, and he is a puppet being tugged into the air. He is an incorrectly assembled piece of DIY furniture: everything is supposed to fit together a particular way, but he's been irreversibly scrambled.

She laughed. And the laugh was for him.

Penny Lane may be what is in his ears, but not what is in his eyes. Right now, all that he can see is her.

The song ends. Castle inwardly curses the Beatles – why couldn't they have made a slightly longer track.

Still, he heads over to the record player, and swaps out the record to another of their songs.

At that moment, the song is just another song, and it doesn't strike him for a long, long while how fitting that tune really was:

I give her all my love  
That's all I do  
And if you saw my love  
You'd love her too.

_(In case you were interested in the fate of the little record player: Castle hangs onto it his whole life, long after it is redundant technology, and carefully keeps it in working order. It is not just an object, but a tangible link to a beautiful memory. The first time he danced with Kate Beckett. When they are older, they dance to the vinyls many times, when the rings on their hands gently whisper together as they float around their living room like a daydream. And one day, he too teaches a small child to dance, their feet balanced on his, his seemingly huge hands harbouring their tiny fingers.)_

* * *

**There you are. I hope it wasn't too bad.**

**Enjoy your day/night. I'll try and update again soon.**

**x.M**


	16. 16 - Up In The Atmosphere

**Hi guys,**

**So here's a new chapter for you all. It's a little long, and jumps around a lot, so I'm sorry in advance. I was at a sleepover last night, and got about five hours rest, so I apologise for any confusing mistakes. Please leave a comment if you see any horrible mistakes. At the moment, this chapter seems all right, but I'm exhausted, so perhaps if I re read it tomorrow, it will seem nightmarish.**

**Who knows?**

**I hope you enjoy it, though.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 16  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1: _  
The easiest way is almost always together.

_Fact 2:  
_There are big dreams and little dreams.

_Fact 3:  
_You never, ever lose count.

* * *

"Okay," Mr Montgomery turns back to his squirming class, a small gaggle of five and six year olds pumped and ready for break.

The chalk is poised in his hand, such a small object to have so much power: the eyes of the children follow its tip, each desperately wishing it remains very separate from its soul mate, the blackboard, as their union could only result in more work.

"I'm going to give you one hard subtraction sum, and as soon as you solve it, you can head off to recess."

Thank _god, _Castle thinks. So far, all they've done today has been maths, which is really, really not his thing. Give him words any day, but numbers should be kept at arms' length. Preferably longer, as his arms are not very long.

The only number he really likes at the moment is '42'. He read once in a Douglas Adams' book that it was the answer to everything, and right now he is inclined to agree: today, that is the exact number of days that have passed since he first caught sight of Beckett in that tree, and he fell off his window sill.

Wow.

He knows establishments have celebrations to acknowledge their success with their 10 year anniversaries, 25 years, 100 years and so on.

Castle reckons he should have one of those to commemorate the 42 best days of his life.

Normally, he has difficulty remembering too many details, but now, it is as if knowing her has somehow reinforced his hippocampus to be practically bulletproof: he finds himself completely incapable of forgetting any detail about Kate Beckett.

He recalls exactly the red scarf she wore that first day six weeks ago, and the way it made her eyes look like they were burning. He knows that her favourite colour changes almost daily, that she loves hanging upside down, that she thinks Detectives can't work with Secret Agents, that she likes hot chocolate. He knows that chess is one of her favourite games, and he knows that's because of him.

Beckett's elbow nudging him in the side drags him back up from the rabbit hole into which he had sunk, snatching him from memories of her to the real version.

"Castle!" she hisses.

"Hmm?" he murmurs by way of response, still momentarily distracted. "What's up?"

"Mr Montgomery has put the sum on the board. If you don't answer it, you'll be stuck in here forever," she tells him, clearly having taken their teacher's condition of leaving for break to heart.

Castle nods rapidly, and glances up to the blackboard.

15 – 7 = ?

"Rats," he mutters. They've only just started doing subtraction this week, and Castle is better at running along the ceiling than counting his head. On the bright side, it's not exactly Beckett's strong suit, either. Most of the time, they've been floundering together, helping each other out when able.

"I _know_," Beckett replies, gritting her teeth in frustration. "We can't work this one out on our fingers. I bet he did that on purpose."

"Yeah," Castle responds glumly. "No one's got fifteen fingers. Darn." Then an idea proceeds to flit into his little brain and doff its hat to his consciousness. "No _one, _Beckett. But between us, we've got twenty fingers. Here, put your hands on the desk…"

She does so, without even raising an eyebrow (she doesn't do that so much anymore, Castle reflects: it's what those in the business call "progress" - although it is still very cute when she does do it), her digits spread out as wide as her small fists can manage, to simplify the counting process. Castle places one of his hands down next to her, making fifteen. He carefully, carefully allows the tips of their littlest fingers to touch _very slightly, _like two strangers accidentally brushing shoulders in the street. As usual, even this small contact doesn't fail to make him feel as if he's just stuck a fork in a toaster.

He taps seven of Beckett's fingers, counting under his breath as he goes. She curls them back down as he does so.  
"That leaves… eight. Eight!" Castle feels victory cover him like a shroud, as he and Beckett quickly scribble the answer in their respective books, and raise their hands to draw Montgomery's attention.

Once their teacher confirms their correct answer, he releases them into the wild of the playground. Castle bounces out the door, glowing with success and teamwork, as Ryan and Jenny enviously watch them leaving early.

Even though it's cheating (he makes sure Beckett is out of view, and that Montgomery has his back turned), Castle draws a quick figure eight in the air to help his friends out.

* * *

In the few moments his back was turned, Beckett has managed to disappear somewhere. The playground is still relatively empty, as they've been let out a little early, so it's not difficult to find her. She perched on one of the swings, slowly working on building up her momentum and flying ever higher.

Castle walks over and stands to her left, under the metal upside-down V of the framework, as close as he can without being in the arc of the swing.

"Are you going to each lunch?" he asks her.

He can just make out her shrug as she swoops past him. "I don't really feel like it. I'm having more fun here."

After a few more seconds of silence, in which he simply watches her, grinning, he pipes up again. "I didn't know you liked swings."

She nods rapidly. "I _love _swings. They make me feel like I'm flying. Everything I don't like, I can just leave on the ground. It's kind of like climbing a tree, but faster and better. But I can never get high enough. When I'm older, I'll be able to get really, really far up."

He loves how confident she sounds. He so hopes all her wishes come true one day, even the little ones like this.

_(Admittedly, as they get older, both Castle and Beckett's aspirations start to extend beyond the achieving the perfect height for a swing's arc. Well, her dreams change more than his. Even right from the beginning – even that day with the red scarf – his dream has always been her.)_

"I can push you, if you want," he offers. "You'll go much higher."

He can feel her hesitation. "I _can _do it myself, you know," she tells him in a stern voice.

"Oh, I know, I know," he clarifies hurriedly. "But I'm getting very bored just standing here, and I think it would be fun to see how high we could get you to go if we worked together, like in class."

Another few seconds tick by as Beckett rises and falls, her hair flying around her, independent of gravity. "Okay," she agrees.

Timing it carefully, he steps in behind her, and makes sure to propel and not shove: he wants her to soar, not fall out of the seat.

After a few pushes, Beckett is swinging so high she's almost parallel to the ground. At the peak of her ascent, she laughs in delight, and suddenly Castle feels as if he is flying almost higher than she is.

* * *

That afternoon, Castle is lying on his bed reading a book about Hercules and his many feats when a knock comes to the door.

_Good, _he thinks. His mother should have been home at least an hour ago. But why is she knocking? Perhaps she lost her key.

He hops down the stairs two a time, and tugs open the door.

It is not his mother than stands there, but Jim Beckett.

"Oh," Castle says, surprised. "Hello, Mr Beckett. It's nice to see you."

Kate's father smiles kindly at him. "Hey there, Richard. Castle, I mean. Listen, your mother just called to let us know that she's had a flat tyre on the way back from work in the city, and she's going to be stranded out there for a little while."

"Is she all right? Is she okay?" Castle asks hurriedly, fully prepared to go find his coat and walk to wherever she is.

"She's fine," Mr Beckett assures him. "But it might be another two hours or so until she can get home, and she didn't want you left here by yourself for that long. She asked if we could mind you for a while. Do you think you would like to come over to our house and play with Katie until your mother gets back?"

Castle nods. "Oh. Yes, please. If that's okay."

"I think it's a grand idea. Come on."

Castle grabs his key and locks the door behind him, following Jim down the sidewalk and into the neighbouring house.

He hasn't really seen much of the Beckett place, really only the hall and Kate's room, when he visited her while she was sick. Jim shows him to the living room, though, where Beckett is hanging off the edge of the couch, upside-down, watching cartoons with one eye closed.

"Hello, Castle," she greets (a touch cautiously) when she catches sight of him in the screen's reflection.

"Hey, Beckett. What are you watching?"

"I don't know. I don't watch a lot of TV, and I don't recognise it. I just turned it on to see if the people would look weird if I watched in like this." She gestures to her current position, before flipping herself upright.

Her cheeks are tinged a little red from hanging upside-down, but it just makes her eyes all the brighter. He finds himself being drawn in. Those eyes are like fire in a snow globe.

"That's Loony Tunes, Beckett," he informs her, squinting at the screen for a moment before arriving at a diagnosis. He hears her father turn and exit the room somewhere behind him. "We should watch it for a little while. It's pretty funny."

* * *

Two hours, thirteen and a half plots about how the two of them could successfully catch the roadrunner, and a quarter of a game of chess later, Martha arrives, looking harried and worn out.

Castle cranes his ears to make out the words being exchanged in the hall.

"… so sorry to be an imposition -"  
"…not a problem, anytime…"  
"…thank you again for looking after him…"  
"… we really must get together for dinner sometime…"

Well, that sounds like a pretty good plan to him.

Martha seems to determine to stop inconveniencing the Becketts as soon as possible, and they leave shortly. At least tomorrow is a Saturday, meaning that Castle can promise Beckett he'll come over in the morning to finish the chess match, and know he'll be able to keep that promise.

* * *

The next day, Castle leans on the coffee counter, his Questing Pass clutched tightly in his tiny fist.

"Here you go, my man," Jesse says, deftly placing two small hot chocolates in front of him.

"Thanks, Jesse."

Jesse dries his hands on a small towel and rests on his forearms for a moment, peering at Castle. "How's it going with your girl, by the way?"

Castle grins. "Very good. I have known her forty three days today. That's a very long time."

Jesse smiles back. "I suppose it is."

"Do you lose count, eventually?" Castle asks, quirking his head to the side.

Jesse shakes his head. "My girl and I? It's fourteen years in fifteen days for us. You never lose count, kid. Never ever," he assures him.

_(Jesse is right, as usual. If you gave Castle a piece of paper, and a lot of time – maths never has been a strong suit for him – he could eventually tell you how long he and Beckett have been acquainted down to the hour. And whether you asked him at sixteen or sixty, he would have been one hundred percent correct in his answer.)_

Castle sighs in relief. "I thought so. Anyway, Jesse, I have one more question. Do you know where I could get a really, really long piece of rope?"

"What for, Castle?"

Carefully, quietly, as if the hot chocolates had ears, Castle whispers his plan to Jesse.

* * *

**Sorry guys, I probably shouldn't publish when I'm this tired, but I really wanted to give you all an update. Please review/comment.**

**In a most unlike-M-manner, I have a plan for the next chapter, so expect another update in the next day or two. I'm probably going to update one or two others as well, so if you have a specific one you want another chapter for, leave the name of the story in the comments.**

**I'm revisiting the possibility of writing a fic of them a little way in the future (while continuing this one) as a kind of 3SF(ALS) Part II. **

**x. M **


	17. 17 - Around and Around

**Hi guys,**

**I know I promised another chapter would be posted days ago, but unfortunately, I got sick again. Sorry. But, here's the update now.**

**Hope you enjoy it.**

**PS. You guys know this is set a few decades back, right? When it was the social norm to let your kids disappear and play for the day, etc.**

* * *

**Three Small Facts (A Love Story) ****– ****chapter 17  
****a caskett fanfiction**

_Fact 1:  
_If you are clever, you can make your own happy coincidences.

_Fact 2:  
_Sometimes the little dreams are the best dreams.

_Fact 3:  
_He is a goner.

* * *

Castle sits at the kitchen table, swinging his legs back and forth as he does his homework, bored to his very nerve endings.

He starts slightly when his mother flits into the room like an Autumn leaf, spinning wildly in her usual vibrant fashion.

"Richard, dear," she calls, sliding into the seat next to him. "I need you to help me move the furniture out of the living room. I've got some of the cast understudies coming over for a master class in acting." She sings the last word, grabbing his small hands and tugging him upright. "Come on, kiddo."

"All right, all right," he grumbles, scrunching his forehead into a tiny frown.

Martha quirks an eyebrow. "What's got you grumpy, mister?"

He sighs. "I just had some stuff I wanted to do this afternoon, that's all. Never mind, Mother. It's fine."

Castle's desperate to complete his master plan: use his mother's old flat tyre from Friday and some rope to make Beckett a swing for her backyard's tree. So far, however, he's had no luck.

He's too little and not strong enough to tie knots tight enough to ensure that the contraption would not break apart with Beckett at the peak of a swing. What he really needs is someone's help, someone like Jesse. But, unfortunately, he's got no way of getting the tyre over to the coffee shop for assistance: it's far too heavy for him to manoeuvre.

He sighs. He'll find a way.

He knows that a rope swing would make Beckett happy, and if he's got an opportunity to make her smile, he's never going to pass it up.

* * *

Just as they're pushing the armchair into the corner of the room, below his mother's framed movie poster for _The Sound of Music,_ a knock comes to the door.

"That must be the first of them!" Martha announces, flitting off to greet the arrivals.

Castle drifts back to the kitchen, deciding to finish his homework sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island.

In the background, he can hear his mother's usual loud and enthusiastic greeting. "Oh, Emma, darling, _do _come in… Ooh, who's this?"

Castle tries to block out the noise until a familiar voice makes him snap upright. "Hi, ma'am… I don't mean to intrude. I'm Jesse McQuel, Emma's fiancé. I knew that there was going to be a group of you, and I just wanted to see if you'd like me to bring you guys anything from the coffee shop. For, you know, refreshments. We're closed early today, so anything we haven't sold already, I can bring over, if you want."

"That would be _lovely, _dear. That's so generous of you."

Castle ducks out into the hallway, spotting the trio on the doorstep.

He hesitates nervously, but Jesse looks up and catches his eye. "Oh," Jesse says, clearly surprised, before flashing a grin. "Hey there, little Castle. I didn't know this was your place."

"Yep," Castle responds, inching closer. Suddenly, he feels almost shy. He's told Jesse quite a lot about Beckett, and he's quickly becoming rather worried that the older boy will feel it a good idea to pass the information onto his mother.

Luckily, Martha is already talking again. "You two know each other?"

Castle nods. "Yes, Mother. I go to his coffee shop sometimes to get hot chocolate. Remember the one we went to on my birthday?"

Martha's eyes flash with comprehension. "Oh, dear, that's wonderful. Charming. Well, you boys entertain yourselves, we're going to get started on some scenes," she declares, grabbing Emma by the hand and practically swirling away like a brightly coloured ink drop in a cup of water.

Castle shakes his head lightly at his mother's antics; in her books, any people of any relation whatsoever to an actor are a good influence on him, and therefore important to spend him around.

Once they are left alone in the hall, Castle turns back to Jesse. "I didn't know you were coming over here," he says.

Jesse shrugs. "Neither did I. Em's working as an understudy on Broadway when she's not in the coffee shop, and she said that one of the leads was having some kind of class… Emma's so excited. She's so great," Jesse grins with pride. "She's gonna be able to be in any show she wants one day."

Castle nods happily. "I bet."

"Hey, since I'm here, you still interested in building your girl that rope swing? I can give you a hand," he offers.

Castle forgets to correct Jesse when the older boy refers to Beckett as "his girl". Well, he tells himself, he forgets. In reality, he leaves it be because it makes his nerve endings feel like firecrackers. "Yes, please."

"Give me ten minutes," Jesse says. "I'll swing back to my place and grab some rope, and then we can get it all rigged up for you. You'll have to ask her parents really nicely, though, because we can't hang it up in their yard without their permission," he warns.

Castle shifts uncomfortably on his feet at the idea of having to ask Jim Beckett for anything.

_(A very long time later, Castle does have to pluck up the courage to ask Beckett's father something really, really important. He visits Jim, who is surprised to see him without Kate beside him. And Castle, for once, is a little lost for words, as he tries to locate a topic that will segue neatly into "Sir, I want to marry your daughter.")_

Suddenly, a brilliant idea occurs to him.

"I have a tree down the back, too. It's not as good as Beckett's tree is for climbing, because all the branches are high up, but it would be perfect to hang a swing from."

Jesse raises an eyebrow. "Are you just scared to talk to her parents?"

"Um… Yes. They're pretty scary, Jesse. What if I do something wrong and they decide they don't like me? Then they won't let her play with me and -"

"Whoa, slow down there, Castle." Jesse grins at him, tilting his head to the side. "Her parents will probably be okay with it. You just have to be nice and polite."

Castle fists his hands uncomfortably as he admits the more selfish facet of his plan. "Plus… If I put it up in my yard, then maybe Beckett'll come over here, sometimes, to play on the swing."

Jesse winks at him. "That's very sneaky, Castle."

Castle's eyes widen. "Is that bad? Am I being mean?"

"No, no. You have every right to put this swing up in your garden. It's yours, isn't it? And if this little girl wants to have a go, she'll have to visit, won't she? And if that happens to mean you get to spend more time with her, well, that's just a happy coincidence, isn't it?"  
Castle grins, before frowning in confusion. "But _I'll _be happy, Jesse. Not the coincidence. I don't care how its feeling."

"Of course you don't. Let me go get some rope. I'll be back in a bit."  
Castle waves as Jesse's faded blue pick-up truck disappears down the street, before running out the door to the storage area below the house. There, he finds the tyre he had stashed there a few days ago, once Martha had returned from her unfortunate mishap.

* * *

"All right, Castle. See the knot I'm using here? It means you'll be able to twist around on the swing, but it won't undo itself. It's a good knot to know. You just thread that… through there… and pull real tight. See?"

Castle nods, watching as Jesse weaves the rope around the black rubber of the car tyre. He tries to memorise the pattern, very sure it will be useful later.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" he asks, scrunching his nose a little as he squints at Jesse's handiwork.

"I sailed, for a long time. I wanted to sail around the world, you know. Would've done it, too."

"Is that your dream?"

Jesse shakes his head. "Nah. It was, back when I was a little tacker, like you. Not anymore, though."

"What's it now?"

A nod towards the house. "Emma. A house. A family. Coffee. The best dreams, Castle, they aren't the wild ones. Not always. Often they're the little ones, the things that can make you happy every day."

Castle nods quickly. "I know. I know those dreams. I want to be a writer, and have lots of people read my books. But I also want…" he trails off, fighting his gaze so that it doesn't betray him by looking over at Beckett's place.

Jesse laughs and shakes his head. "Oh, kid," he sighs. "You are a _goner._"

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're very, very lucky, and if you play your cards right, you've got a lot to look forward to. I'll tell you more when you're older. Now, let's get this up in that tree, little guy."

* * *

Castle bounces up and down in the swing experimentally, feeling the gentle give of the black rubber underneath him.

"Well, it seems pretty sturdy," he notes. "Can you spin me around, Jesse, please?"

Jesse nods, reaching forward and turning him about several times, winding up the rope before releasing it, making Castle spin like a top, laughing his six-year-old laugh all the while.

While Castle has never been on a swing like this before, the odd sensation of flying while the whole world shifts and his stomach skips a step is strangely familiar to him.

That's right.

It's the feeling he gets when he sees Kate.

* * *

**There you go, hope you're all still enjoying the story. Next chapter will be much Rick/Kate cuteness, I assure you, and the chapter after that I have something interesting planned... stay tuned.**

**Note: I am looking for some fanfiction to read. Preferably a longish story, but short ones are A-OK too. Please recommend me some in the reviews if you know a good one. It can be your own, just shamelessly stuff in a self-promo. This is a caskett filled, judgement-free zone.**

**x. M**

**PPS: I've also written a lot of new stories of late, including a one-shot this morning, so if you're procrastinating or are bored, feel free to check them out.**


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